LETTER AS SUBMITTED TO THE NORTH WALES CHRONICLE

Dear Editor,

It is unlikely that anyone would think that Mr Francis Wykes was in the pay of the oil industry (which he feels the need to deny in his letter of the 30th of March), because those kinds of lobbyists have now largely fallen silent in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that the way we are burning oil, gas and coal is causing the world's climate to change.

Mr Wykes says that "it is obvious to the most untrained scientific mind which gas [water vapour or carbon dioxide] has the greatest greenhouse effect." But, given the complexity of the world's climate, this kind of thinking is far too simple. It really is necessary to study what climate scientists have to say on this point and a very good place to start is with the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These may be downloaded from http://www.ipcc.ch/.

Mr Wykes enters a world of pure fantasy when he says that "Most of the world's so-called experts on climate science are in thrall to their political paymasters .... The real political agenda behind climate science is to save fossil fuels for as many generations as possible."

The reality is that climate scientists have been battling to communicate the dangers of climate change in the face of the massive vested interests of the industries that make money from selling fossil fuels. Those industries have been applying great pressure on politicians to avoid doing anything that might reduce the sales of those fuels.

Those points apart, I very much agree with Mr Wykes that we should indeed be saving fossil fuels. There is enormous potential in power from wind, waves, tidal streams and, in particular, enormous quantities of solar energy in the world's hot deserts (with well-established methods for capturing this energy and bringing it to the UK). Further information may be found at http://www.mng.org.uk/green_house/renewable_energy/csp.htm .

Sincerely,

Marianne Jones

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