Climate change is not just down to emissions

The point is well made that computerised climate models are unreliable and have not been confirmed by observation or experiment.

And now we know that there are a number of other probable explanations for why the climate is changing and that the whole thing is very much more complex than just a possible greenhouse gas effect. So merely putting forward zero-carbon as a solution is both simplistic and most probably pointless.

What is actually needed is the academic freedom to pursue dispassionate research into all aspects of climate change without fear or favour.

It shouldn’t be necessary to say this, but it seems that in the current academic environment it is necessary.

It’s clear that there are a huge number of vested interests in perpetuating the current unsubstantiated popular view of the reason for climate change. The situation has developed to the point where many livelihoods are at stake and people who have made commitments to these points of view cannot easily back down.

We are now in grave danger in Guernsey of committing ourselves to a very damaging course of action based on incorrect, or at least questionable, evidence.

You only have to look at the current financial problems in the UK to see the fruits of their misguided policy on energy supplies over a number of years, which is a significant underlying reason for the pending recession and inflation.

On Friday 5 August you carried Richard Digard’s article [Epic finance fail forecast] about a future FATF review. It’s a worrying story that Richard covers well, but almost as an afterthought he also says that ‘There’s added pressure too, to ensure that finance is sustainable – in the green sense’. But it’s not clear whether this refers to the FATF review, or whether it’s just a general observation.

If it does refer to the FATF review then it would seem that we would have no option other than to follow the UK’s very unsatisfactory lead on zero carbon. Personally I would hope that Liz Truss (and it looks as though it will probably be Liz Truss) may have a broader, more realistic and better informed view of it than did Boris Johnson.

There’s quite a lot of evidence now that people are waking up slowly – far too slowly – to the fact that we have been misled by those climate change scientists who have been pushing for serious actions by governments based on speculative and unsubstantiated climate modelling.

To have any chance at all of dealing with climate change, the world needs to greatly extend the scope and range of its knowledge and research, and the West needs to review the focus of its zero-carbon actions. If these actions are misplaced, and they may well be, then not only will they not solve it, but they will prevent us performing alternative actions which may be able to do so.

BOB PERKINS

Les Corneilles

Rue de la Ronde Cheminee

Castel