We are guilty of a heinous crime against nature

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast of global warming up to 2100 is not just a projection, as Dr Colmán Etchingham claims (Letters, March 25) — it is a prediction based on a sophisticated computer model of the earth’s climate which has been validated by ‘backcasting’ — in other words, testing with historical data to see if it correctly predicts the present.

The fact that there has been climate change in the past and that it was affected by things other than human activity does not disprove the IPCC’s climate change theory.

These factors are well understood and are incorporated into the model. No one who understands anything about weather and climate would construe the reluctance of meteorologists to attribute any specific extreme weather event to global warming as expressing doubt concerning climate change theory.

There is no doubt that human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuel, are releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and that the percentage of CO2 has increased by 50% over the past century. This has been extensively measured. The greenhouse effect — whereby certain molecules, such as CO2, absorb shortwave radiation and re-emit the energy as heat — is fundamental to quantum physics and has been proven experimentally in the laboratory. The only way to satisfy doubters would be to experiment with several identical planet earths, which is clearly impossible.

The evidence is overwhelming. The case has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. The human race is guilty of the most heinous crime against future generations and other species.

Nevertheless, denial is widespread and not just by vested interests. The media love to generate controversy and present a ‘balanced’ view, but by doing so they encourage those who want to retreat into denial because they cannot bear to countenance the terrible things we are doing to the planet.

We should not be using the remote possibility that we are not responsible for destructive climate change as an excuse for inaction.

Michael Job

Rossnagreana

Glengarriff

Co Cork