Textbook error

As somebody who is qualified and has worked in the field of energy conservation for the last 15 years, I have watched the consensus on climate change grow. The idea that anthropogenic carbon emissions are affecting the world’s climate is now embraced by the leader of every developed economy in the world.

I thought that the climate change deniers had all been exposed as being in the pay of big oil, and had been squeezed into a box they can share with ‘flat-earthers’, 9/11 conspiracy theorists and religious zealots who oppose the teaching of evolution in schools.

However, I must now revise these opinions in the light of Mr Cooknell’s letter. Quite clearly, all the money spent on climate change research has been wasted. All that was needed was an A-level physics textbook, access to the internet and the ability to carry out some experiments at home.

You don’t even need to worry about those complicated algorithms – why bother when it is all just “too mathematical”? – to realise that global warming is all the fault of the sun and nothing to do with man-made emissions.

Has anybody informed Tony Blair or his chief scientific adviser of this groundbreaking work? And what about George Bush, the G8, the UN… I think it would really help them make their decisions on a much more informed basis.

With such a high calibre of membership I look forward to reading on next month’s letters page how some CIBSE member has invented cold fusion in their garden shed or proved that we have enough oil to last us a thousand years.