‘Only a few still believe in climate crisis’

SARAH Gladwell’s letter (Emission Action, July 31) is well-meaning but misinformed.

She must be the only person in Cambridgeshire who still believes we face a ‘climate crisis’ because of carbon dioxide.

Let me remind readers of the facts (not the fantasies from computer modelling).

1. The total human contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is just 4 per cent, the remaining 96 per cent enters the atmosphere mostly from the oceans and sparsely populated tropical rainforest areas (as measured by SCIAMACHY).

2. As the earth warms then CO2 levels rise - not the other way round.

3. Current levels of CO2 (around 390 parts per million) are low compared even to the relatively recent past (a few hundred thousand years ago). Plants are now ‘gasping for breath’. Cutting CO2 (even if we could) would starve people by causing reduced harvests, killing those who already live on the edge.

The World ?’Development‘ Movement seems a misnomer. Trying to cut the use of fossil fuels is to condemn developing countries to continuing poverty. They need reliable energy and a lively free market rather than windmills and the likes of Robert Mugabe.

Rev Philip Foster

Common Lane

Hemingford Abbots