Opinions and belief have no place in science

He subsequently found very good correlation between volcanic activity and global warming, and theorised that the halide containing vapours released by eruptions were the cause of the warming effect by catalytically breaking down the Earth’s ozone layer, allowing increased ultra violet radiation through to heat the oceans. As this is a catalytic effect, small amounts of these gases can deplete large tracts of ozone.

The Earth’s ozone layer is in the stratosphere and normally protects the Earth by absorbing the higher frequencies of UV radiation. This is a reason why, while atmospheric temperatures decrease rapidly with height down to about -55°C at the top of the troposphere, they increase again in the stratosphere to a maximum of about 0°C before falling off again with further height increases.

Dr Ward’s ozone depletion theory also correlates with the huge slowing down of global warming in the 21st century even while CO2 levels have continued to rise sharply, since halide containing CFCs (widely used previously in fridges and fire extinguishers) were banned towards the end of the 20th century. The reason for the CFC ban was the increased incidence of sunburn and skin cancers caused by the increase in UV radiation following CFC damage to the ozone layer, but nobody seems to have worked out that if UV could do this then it must conceivably also have been causing global warming by warming the Earth’s oceans.

Of course back then the question of global warming was not on everybody’s minds.

Dr Ward calculates that the UV effect is many times more potent than any greenhouse gas effect, and also suggests that greenhouse gas theory is in urgent need of review in the light of modern knowledge of atomic structures and the properties of radiation.

Dr Ward’s web site at http://ozonedepletiontheory.info goes into all this in much detail, though parts of his paper are hard going for a layperson. In 2019 he also published a related book called ‘What really causes global warming?’

But the scientific establishment who are equipped to consider these and other questions have pulled up the drawbridge and taken up purely defensive positions. They cannot brook anything which may conflict with what they see as their established certainties. This attitude is of course very bad science, since science should be all about the testing of theories and being flexible enough to make amendments when new facts emerge. Unfortunately, in the real world, there are career and funding pressures and vested interests which interfere with this. This seems particularly so in the field of global warming, and the unfortunate result is that attitudes have become polarised, and scientific debate has been stifled.

The mantra that CO2 emissions cause global warming has been repeated so often and so universally that people who don’t understand the science – and that’s most of us – have just come to believe it because we’ve been told over and over again that it’s the case. It has taken on the attributes of an article of faith, and as such is often accepted most fervently by those lay people who may be the least well informed. In fact it has taken on a life of its own.

Important decisions are being made at this very moment based more on ideological stances and on the weight of popular and professional opinions rather than on the basis of sound scientific evidence. Opinions and belief have no place in science, and somehow the scientific and political establishments have got to do very much better than this.

BOB PERKINS

Les Corneilles

Rue de la Ronde Cheminee

Castel

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