Climate change denial fed by misconceptions

YOUR readers could be tiring of Mr Auty’s enthusiastic desire to dig up peat bogs for horticulture. The problem is his very hazy grasp of soil and peat science, the carbon cycle, the basics of climate science etc. He has some nice notes, but as Eric Morecambe once wittily said, they are in the wrong order.

In his most recent letter (Mail Box, May 1 ), Mr Auty incorrectly takes another correspondent to task over the meaning of carbon sequestration. As with so much, Mr Auty has not understood the concept and gets muddled.

Mr Auty needs to know that peat formation stores carbon for tens of thousands, potentially millions of years. This is long-term carbon sequestration, permanently removing carbon from the atmosphere. This is termed a carbon sink.

Climate scientists, people who devote their lives to understanding climate, who Mr Auty may think of as “woke eco-warrior-green-zealots” would prefer it to stay there, out of harm’s way, in order to help control our escalating climate crisis. Plants grown in Mr Auty’s garden do not replicate the carbon storage properties of a healthy peat bog. They cycle their carbon content rapidly, back into the atmosphere via chemical respiration and decomposition.

I sincerely hope this helps readers who might be bamboozled by Mr Auty’s rapid fire climate denial strategy. Mr Auty will exercise his right to reply, alternating back to coir which has been well aired in this newspaper.

The people of East Yorkshire can judge what they think of that in due course. They can even select nonpeat growth media for their gardens. There’s plenty about.