Last updated: March 11, 2010
Source: South China Morning Post
In a letter to the editor of SCMP, James Watkins of Sai Kung writes:
I become quite despondent when I read letters on global warming such as those by Beatrice Yeung and by Jessie Kwok (“Poor nations will need help” and “Habitats are under threat”, March 9).
It is disappointing that your correspondents and many others like them accept the received wisdom without regard to the available evidence.
The view that polar bears and other species are under threat from the consequences of man-made climate change flies in the face of all recent evidence, which demonstrates that the polar bear population is increasing and that the species is flourishing.
Likewise, the evidence is clear that speciation thrives under warm climate conditions and that by far the greater threat to the animal population would be a return to the glacial conditions that the earth has experienced many times during its existence.
Ms Yeung addressed the problems faced by poorer nations in coping with the financial demands required to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat man-made climate change.
Despite the efforts made to suppress it by those who argue that man-made global warming is happening, evidence is now emerging that casts serious doubt on both the existence of climate change and its cause.
In the first place, it is quite clear that periods of warm and cold climates have alternated for many millions of years.
Periods of warm climate in the past, at least as warm as the present, could not have been caused by greenhouse gas emissions, since they long predated the industrial revolution.
Second, it is by no means established that the warm climate now being experienced will necessarily continue or that it is significantly different from that experienced even within recent memory.
Third, and most importantly, there is now a serious body of evidence which proposes that climate change results from solar activity.
The work of Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv in this area of science is critical and is available publicly to anyone with the desire to read all the evidence on the topic.
I would also add that carbon dioxide emissions literally cannot have any role in the origination of earthquakes, and it is highly unlikely that they are a contributing factor in other natural disasters, such as typhoons and hurricanes.
For the sake of brevity, I have had to simplify these complex issues.
My key point is that there are issues to discuss and they need to be discussed openly.
Finding solutions to the problems of the world is not aided by the contributions of those who blindly purvey the ideas of those who have approached this question with prejudice and closed minds.