Let’s stick to the facts over climate change

Sir, – Yet again climate emergency alarmists Nick Cole and Alistair Ballantyne choose to distort and misunderstand comments from realist (sceptic) correspondents (May 20) who present factual analyses which repeatedly demonstrate that the needless and prohibitively costly drive to net-zero carbon is a fool’s errand.

Let’s be clear, in relation to fossil fuel use, climate realists do not for a minute suggest, as Mr Cole puts it, “that we carry on regardless” or that they are an inexhaustible resource. They are, however, an invaluable means of granting us time to engage in a sensible and staged transition towards the development of new technologies that will help to retain and could even enrich standards of living.

One such example may be the development of the wonder material graphene which could ultimately replace conventional plastics, and lubricants, revolutionise electronics, hydrogen fuel cells and steel production.

Mr Ballantyne appears to dismiss nuclear fusion, the limitless, waste-free, carbon-neutral Holy Grail that would solve our energy needs, as being as distantly unattainable as a manned mission to Mars. Although frequently described as being 40 years from realization it is edging ever closer to reality through international scientific collaboration.

These alarmist correspondents also claim that “statistics” prove there is correlation between a marginal temperature increase and elevated CO2 from satellite data and ice core samples. To the contrary, the latter have in fact proved that temperature rise precedes elevated CO2 by hundreds of years. May I remind them of that old phrase “there are three kinds of falsehoods – lies, damned lies and statistics.”

He and Mr Ballantyne should also perhaps note that over the past 25 years humanity has released more than a third of all CO2 produced since the Industrial Revolution and yet the temperature has remained essentially constant, a fact that their much-loved IPCC computer models failed to predict.

Finally, contrary to Mr Ballantyne’s erroneous statement that global temperature fell fractionally during the lockdown period of the pandemic due to “reduced human activity” it actually briefly increased by 0.1- 0.3 degrees Celsius due to a reduction of transport and industry-generated airborne particulates which would normally have partially blocked incoming sunlight.

Let’s stick to facts, not contrived statistics.

Neil J Bryce. Gateshaw Cottage, Kelso.