Climatechange claims continue to confound

IT is increasingly claimed the principle cause of global warming is water vapour (for example, P. Foster, ODT, 2.8.18).

This claim is clearly designed to confuse and cast doubt on climate science.

You don’t need much scientific expertise to appreciate atmospheric water vapour is produced by heat and water.

Just boil the kettle for a cuppa.

The warmer the conditions globally, the greater the amount of water vapour. The water vapour then amplifies the warming initiated in the first place by trapping lower atmosphere heat.

Everyone knows with cloud cover you won’t get a frost.

Increasingly, since the Industrial Revolution, this has been accelerated by burning fossil fuel, modern farming and industrial activity.

Any subsequent increased release of methane will amplify this process.

All natural processes involve feedback, sometimes very complex. The trick this time is to identify the kickstart variable.

Climate scientists and chemists have done this — and it’s called carbon dioxide. Stuart Mathieson

Palmerston

GWYNNNE Dyer (ODT, 3.8.18) is at it again with incredibly alarmist climate assessments, based on conspiracy theories, even implying that there is a risk of some of us being wiped out by asteroids, as were the dinosaurs.

He notes the other four ‘‘great dyings’’ were when the planet was unusually hot, as it is at present.

But the planet is not unusually hot at present.

At Dyer’s times of the other ‘‘great dyings’’, the planet was much hotter, 5 to 10degC warmer, as it has been for about 480 of the last 600 million years of geological time.

Further, a large picture of the disastrous Athens fires last week, prefaced ‘‘climate change’’, is misleading.

There are many reports of arson being suspected as the cause.

We could do without such uninformed and emotive journalism. Jock Allison

Dunedin

THANK goodness for sane people like Peter Foster (ODT, 2.8.18), for pointing to the folly of New Zealand spending around $1 billion per year ‘‘combating climate change’’.

What has this spending achieved? Even the IPCC agrees there has been no ‘‘global warming’’ this century and it can be calculated that, if it were possible for the whole of the United States to suddenly stop putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it would result in a reduction of only 0.3 parts per million!

It’s time to reevaluate our priorities. Mack Holmes

Dunedin

Public access issue

GERRARD Eckhoff is well wide of the mark when stating (ODT, 1.8.18) that Labour failed to gain public support to allow access through all property to and along rivers, ‘‘but was gleefully supported by Fish and Game and something called Public Access NZ and or the Public Lands Coalition, who saw their recreational opportunity as a birthright and a chance to collectively set aside the property rights of all others’’.

Firstly, the PLC ceased to exist well before the Jim Sutton scheme foundered.

A large part of the reason for the latter was the opposition of PANZ and the NZ Federation of Fresh Water Anglers.

I was told by Mr Sutton’s office that the proposal would not proceed if PANZ opposed the minister’s plans.

With the exception of Fish and Game NZ, the above NGOs were scathingly dismissive of Labour’s plans which, incidentally, were contrary to their election policies.

Bruce Mason Public Lands Coalition, founder

Public Access New Zealand