State agencies raise the temperature

I WISH to congratulate Ryle Dwyer for his column on so-called global warming by means of fossil fuel burning (Irish Examiner, March 20).

While I am all for burning fuels more efficiently, it is primarily because the less fuel used, the better for the economy.

State and semi-state bodies are the worst offenders, burning the same amount of fuel in late April/May as in January in their heating systems. Instead they should be thermostatically controlled and save taxpayers’ money.

According to a book by climatologist Nigel Calder, we would now be in a little ice age but for man-made heat. He equates the build-up of carbon dioxide due to human activities as equivalent to the joker in a pack of cards, saying the joker may be the most important climate card in our lifetime.

Between 1000 AD and 1200 AD temperatures in Europe were two to three degrees warmer than today’s and the sea was three metres higher. This happened when the world had a much smaller population and far less burning of fossil fuels. Most of our coastal cities already existed then with no history of the kind of flooding we are led to believe would happen in the future if the seas rose by just one metre.

Our greatest requirement is to force the rain on occasions of saturation and flooding to fall in the Atlantic by means of cloud seeding. This would be great for agriculture and less money would be needed for arterial drainage.

Michael Cummins

Limerick Road

Charleville

Co Cork