YOUR VIEWS

NOT for the first time I have to take exception to Ray Fleming's views on technical matters. But this time he has really gone over the top.
In the 2nd leader in your issue of 10 February - Prince Charles' Pledge - he takes the Prince to task for not mentioning in a speech and a Times article the overriding need to tackle climate change by reducing the carbon emissions which most experts believe to be he root cause of the natural disasters which he referred to in his article. “Most experts ..,.??” Is he not aware that tens of thousands of scientists worldwide do not accept the views on climate change expressed by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)?

These include, for example, the 31'478 scientists (amongst them 9029 with Ph.D. degrees) who signed a petition in 2008 urging the United States Government to have nothing to do with the IPCC's strictures and also the entire Russian scientific establishment. Compare this with the number of scientists who wrote the crucial Chapter 9 of the IPCC's most recent (2007) Assessment Report - just 53, most of whom were very closely linked.

I cannot, regrettably, do anything about Prince Charles' views but if Ray Fleming is not aware of these facts then I suggest he might do some reading around the subject before committing his views to print. I would be happy to give him a reading list if that were helpful..

Regards

Bryan Oliver
Camp de Mar