Climate of fear

There has been predictable outrage amongst the largely innumerate environmental establishment and its followers over Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

There has been less analysis of just what this agreement, with or without US participation, might actually do for the climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate model predicts that global temperatures would increase by about 4C by 2100 against 1 to 1.5C which is regarded, without any real evidence, as the maximum safe amount.

Using the same model the distinguished environmental scientist Bjorn Lomborg shows that if all Paris commitments were achieved by 2030 and sustained until 2100, a highly unlikely situation, the temperature rise would be reduced by only 0.17C. All the US reductions proposed by Barack Obama would contribute only 0.032C of this.

The bad news for those worried about climate change is that the Paris agreement is unlikely to do anything much about it.

The rather better news is that the US pulling out would make little difference.

However, the best news is that these predictions are based on a model which has consistently overestimated temperature rise by about 100 per cent compared with that actually observed.

(PROF) JACK PONTON Scientific Alliance Scotland North St David’s Street

Edinburgh demonstrating the devastatingly poor performance of 50 per cent of young Scots in their Higher examinations. I argued that the Scottish educational establishment was complicit in mediocrity. There were too many vested interests in the Four Year degree courses. As one luminary remarked to me when I challenged him about his acquiescence in an indefensible system, “Patrick, turkeys do not vote for Christmas”.

In June 2014 I was invited to write an article on the wisdom or otherwise of Scottish independence. I sat judiciously on the fence but ended with this sentiment: “I do not doubt that an independent Scotland can cope on its own. I do doubt whether Scotland’s best interests lie in secession.

“Were I to have the vote this September I would now be asking Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon to articulate much more clearly their plans and vision for shaping a Scotland better fit for the 21st century.

“What is the point of independence if the same people pull the levers, the same opaqueness blunts critical analysis and the same Spanish practices frustrate open government?”

I sent a copy of that article to Nicola Sturgeon and, not surprisingly, did not receive a response.

In my covering message to her I wrote: “I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Scotland but realised how lucky I was to be leading schools that were truly independent of government!”

I remain a huge admirer of the now First Minister but am sad that she has evidently not cleared out the politico-educational stable.