I feel that the Letter to the Editor in your issue of December 12 must not go unchallenged and if this makes me a “left-wing- extremist climate change alarmist” (Mr. Marsh’s description), then so be it. It is a little difficult to begin separating the mishmash of bald misstatement of ‘facts’, use of terms deliberately chosen to present a false impression, irrelevances and total lack of scientific rigour, but let me try.
While I will try to refrain from ‘ad hominem’ attacks, your writer would seem to possess a distinct lack of understanding of science and I write from the perspective of both a chemist and engineer for most of my working life. To describe the current drought as a ‘dry spell’ comes from either ignorance or a complete lack of understanding the facts or worse. More than ninety eight percent (98%) of more than 3,800 climate scientists agree that man-made production of gaseous materials has caused a rise in global temperature since the beginning of the industrial revolution. This totally indisputable – numbers are numbers of these, carbon dioxide is by far the most egregious (the other gases include methane, polychlorinated Fluorocarbons, and nitrogen oxides). Thankfully common sense prevailed with PCFs and these have been banned worldwide. Unfortunately, the same common sense does not apply to CO2 and carbon based fuels – in my view, promoted by the fossil fuel industry and this view is supported by substantial evidence of this. There is absolutely no doubt, except by those with an agenda to promote, that increasing CO2 levels are increasing global temperatures.
The debate only remains about the level of expected temperature rise and it is becoming increasingly clear that those scientific models with the most dire outcomes are proving to be more accurate. The results are increasingly intense weather events (most farmers in Canowindra know all about El Niǹo and La Niǹa and recent extremes of these), increasing ocean salinity (from dissolved CO2). Australia does NOT have the lowest carbon emissions in the world – this is a direct fabrication. Indeed the whole paragraph that contains this statement is completely and totally incorrect. The fact that CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere is irrelevant – the effect and not the concentration is important.
Most farmers would seem to have joined “the left-wing extremist Climate Change Cult” (Mr Marsh’s words) and are seeing first-hand the effects of global warming on weather, drought and their very future. They see first-hand that this is no ”myth/hoax/scam” that Mr Marsh suggests. There is nothing “natural” about 30% of the Great Barrier Reef dying (like similar reefs around the world. There is nothing natural about temperatures being the highest ever recorded around the world (fact Mr Marsh, not opinion or hearsay).
Mr Marsh is welcome to his views but, please, keep them to yourself. Our futures and those of our children and grandchildren are far too important to fall prey to untruths, platitudes and ignorance.
Denis McKay