Attack corrupts any open debate

Sir, – Lesley Ellis attacks the good sense of The Press and Journal, which allows the expression of opinions contrary to those he holds on climate change (Letters, September 13).

This erosion of the democratic process, which corrupts open debate on what is probably the most emotive issue of our time, is both foolish and dangerous.

The much vaunted 97% body of scientific evidence that supports the concept of human-induced climate change that feeds the narrative of impending catastrophe which Mr Ellis, much of the media and policy makers clearly believe in, has been shown to be a statistically contrived conjuring trick.

We are further bombarded with countless lurid illusions of extreme weather events such as raging wildfires, winter storms, and monsoon floods.

Yet, strangely enough, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change no less still fails to detect any significant shift in frequency of severity of such events.

The blame for recent tragic flooding in Pakistan, for example, has more to do with human folly that has coincided with unusually heavy monsoon rains.

Vast swathes of protective forests that used to protect its watershed have disappeared, altering the local climate, exposing the soil to massive erosion and subsequent downstream sedimentation of watercourses.

Administrative incompetence and corruption have added to the misery, which had coincided with an unusual though not unprecedented combination of two natural climatic phenomena known as La Nina and the negative Indian Ocean Dipole. This is the reality that seldom makes the headlines.

Neil J Bryce, Gateshaw Cottage, Kelso.