Fri, Oct 08, 2010 page8

• [ LETTERS ]

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  Climate change no myth

  I feel I must respond to Charles Hong’s continued misunderstanding (Letters, Oct. 5, page 8).

  I have no doubt that there is a controversy over climate change on the Internet. There is no question that media organizations will either reflect, or, in the case of Fox News, promote, alternative, skeptical views. Both are part of the wider political controversy I mentioned previously.

  Equally, there is no question that it is usually a mistake to attribute any given local weather event to climate change, whatever your view on climate change may be, because the climate is a long-term trend over years; not what the weather is doing today or has done this month.

  However, climate change — brought about by rising global temperatures to which greenhouse gases, including CO2, resulting from human activity play a not insignificant part — is neither a scientific controversy nor simply a “belief” that requires “respect” that happens to be held by some people. It is the scientific consensus subscribed to by a majority of experts in the field, built up over 35 years or more of scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific literature.

  Thousands of scientists have in recent years contributed to four major (some say conservative) assessments of this literature from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and national governmental reports based on the science, such as the UK’s 2006 700-page Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, are all very, very clear.

  There is not anything like the equivalent weight of evidence on the side of skeptics and it is therefore a consensus that needs urgently to be acknowledged in some quarters before we can move on to thinking more seriously about tackling the possible consequences, in particular in the US, which continues to downplay the role of the UN in attempting to reach an -international agreement.

  PAUL DEACON

  Kaohsiung

  Charles Hong states the obvious when he writes that the carbon footprint of electric cars is entirely dependent upon the way in which the electricity is generated.

  However, a brief search on Google reveals a number of Web sites stating that cars running on coal-generated electricity have a carbon footprint of one-third of their gasoline equivalent. For example, one such site can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/actions/electriccars.shtml.

  In stating that coal releases more carbon dioxide than oil, Hong misses the fact that comparing coal burned in a power station with oil in an internal combustion engine is not comparing like with like. The size of a power station lends efficiency. Another quick search reveals that coal-fired power stations can run at 60 percent efficiency whereas internal combustion engines run at 20 percent to 30 percent, giving the electric car a big head start.

  He also states that there are 1,370,000 hits on Google relating to “global warming controversy 2010” (searched without quotes). This tells us that there are a lot of Web pages with these four words. There are 11 million hits for “intelligent design” and 591,000 hits for “Loch Ness Monster.” This tells us that there is a lot of information on the Web, some of it reliable, some of it not, and it tells us that people don’t always agree on issues. What this raw data doesn’t tell us anything about is the credibility of either side of the argument.

  There are scientists who question all or part of the “climate change as a result of human activity” hypothesis and due to the nature of science, there probably always will be. It should be emphasized that they are a very small minority, even if an exact proportion is hard to reference.

  TOBY WILSDON

  Taipei
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