Right to challenge uninformed claims

I THANK Mike Butterfield for his flattering description of me as ‘a leading professor in issues concerning the environment’ in his recent letter. However, to put the record straight, I retired from academia more than a decade ago where my main interests were in specific facets of water quality. Whether I was ‘leading’ in any sense is a moot point and not for me to say.

Through some aspects of my teaching and research, however, I did have to become familiar with aspects of climate change and particularly the impact of human activities on recent and future global warming. This involved reading the work of many climate and other scientists, who are much more expert than me.

I have retained that interest and try to keep abreast of recent developments, and I feel it is important to challenge the uninformed claims, sometimes made in letters to this newspaper, which are based on little or no scientific understanding and deny the reality and the seriousness of climate change caused by human actions.

With respect to the question Mr Butterfield poses me, it is one based on a ‘strawman’ argument in that it makes the false assumption that China, India and America are doing and will do nothing to combat their carbon emissions.

The UK Government has set the targets for our country to reach ‘Net Zero’ based on the advice of the Climate Change Committee, which was established by law in 2008 and includes distinguished scientists, engineers and experts from other disciplines.

Clearly the UK Government has serious concerns about climate change and believes this country should be taking its responsibilities in this area seriously. Does Mr Butterfield feel that we should take no steps to protect future generations from the serious problems that are very likely to be associated with unchecked global warming? A simple yes or no answer will suffice.

Professor Bruce Webb Exeter, Devon