And once the Earth was flat!

IT IS quite clear that David Hampton is an eco-warrior and like all eco-warriors attacks anyone who challenges their fixation on made-man global warming as heretics. In the Middle Ages the popular science believed the world was flat and anyone who challenged that false theory was branded a heretic and burnt at the stake. From the personal nature of David Hamptons attack on me I am sure he would like to see me burnt at the stake as a heretic!

I have never implied or stated that we should waste the world's natural resources including fossil fuels. In fact had David Hampton read my letter in the BFP of 13th July he would see that I have, for a number of years, taken action to reduce my consumption of fossil fuels. I find it saddening that David Hampton, having been educated at one of the UK's finest universities, should attempt to denigrate my professional qualifications in his failed attempt to discredit anyone who does not agree with his views on climate change.

The debate on climate change divides itself into two schools of thought, those who promote the theory that it is solely due to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and those who accept that the climate has been constantly changing since the world was formed and well before man appeared on the planet.

The CO2 theory has been hi-jacked by Governments as a means of raising taxation. Governments have a record of lying; remember Mr Blair told us in 2002 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be launched in 45 minutes. Anyone interested should read Peter Osborne's book The Rise of Political Lying. All agencies that are financed by Government therefore promote the CO2 theory, that includes the Met Office and the IPCC. Research by Oxford University has shown that only half the taxes being raised by the UK Government through green issues are being applied to that cause. The rest are being lost in a bottomless pit!

The other group is made up of prestigious research establish-ments and universities scattered all round the world. These are the organisations that David Hampton falsely claims as having been discredited but does not support his wild claims with scientific fact.

In my last letter I referred to a paper written by Professor Bellamy, University of Durham. In this paper David Bellamy considers all the research data currently available on climate change and identifies the weaknesses in the IPCC findings. His conclusion is that there is a much greater risk of exhausting the world's reserves of fossil fuels rather than the warming effect of a one degree Celsius rise in global temperature caused by CO2 by the end of the century. David Bellamy's paper together with two others is being presented at Imperial College, University of London on Thursday, October 11.

The real problem is population growth. A recent article written by Niall Ferguson, History Professor, Harvard, USA puts a strong case why we should be worrying about bread not oil.

I am sure even David Hampton will understand when I refer to the difference between an arithmetic progression and a geometric progression. According to Thomas Malthus the world's population increases according to the laws of a geometric progression whereas the food supply growth conforms to an arithmetic progression.

The world's production of grain per capita reached its peak in the mid 1980s. Since then the global population has been increasing at approximately 75 million per year and today is 6.5 billion which is 1.5 billion more than in the mid 80s. Clearly, I share David Hampton's concern for his children and my grandchildren when faced with the prospect of the world exhausting its resources.

Anthony Weeden B.Sc.(Eng.), Hons., C.Eng., M.I.Mech Bockmer End Marlow