Grahame Wiggin writes (CM, September, Letters) with what still is a very common view, namely “that there are scientists who argue that mere mortals don’t affect the natural cycle of the earth’s climate that has been established over millenia.”

Much as I wish this were true, it just isn’t. Grahame has been badly misled. Anyone who has seen the Al Gore film An Inconvenient Truth will understand the nature and extent of the 50 years of misinformation and the fossil fuel blowout bonfire.

The truth is that there is 100% unanimity among scientists that humans are influencing the climate. Every one of 4,000 peer reviewed scientific papers over the past 10 years (that we don’t read) agrees. Over the same time period however, 50% of media articles (that we do read) introduce an element of doubt. To “introduce some doubt” was the simple single tactic now known to have been used by tobacco lobbyists for years. “Doctors aren’t yet quite sure cigarettes cause lung cancer...” was their story.

On what basis could anyone believe that us “mere” mortals, introducing 50m kilograms of CO2 pollution each minute, could possibly be safe? Nature can absorb less than half that amount. The question is not if CO2 is dangerous, but how could we ever have believed it to be safe?

Evidence suggests that over the last 800,000 years CO2 concentration never once fluctuated outside the range of 200-300ppm. Until 150 years ago and the Industrial Revolution. Since we started burning fossil fuels, CO2 has risen straight up in just 100 years to almost 380ppm now.

We have never been here before and the concentration of the gas that regulates Spaceship Earth’s climate is 30% higher than it has ever been. 400ppm is thought to be as high as we dare take it, yet we burn on while leaders fiddle.

The global warming and climate related deaths we are starting to experience today (through heatwaves, drought, storms, floods) are believed to be the delayed result of fossil fuel burnt up until the 1950s, when we burned in one year what we now burn in six weeks.

If you still have doubts, don’t be surprised.

We are addicted to carbon and our addiction clouds our thinking. But that is not the same as it being impossible to come off it - carbon that is.

Dave Hampton, The Carbon Coach

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Construction Manager