Too much hot air in debate over climate change

From: Frank Wilson, Butternab Road, Beaumont Park, Huddersfield.

YOUR correspondent Ron Firth (Yorkshire Post, April 1) quite rightly questions the recent statements by the outgoing Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, to the effect that the increasing disruption in our weather patterns is the direct result of global warming for which we – one way or another – are responsible.

Mr Firth suggests that if Professor Beddington is so sure of his theories – aired on the BBC and other networks – then he and similarly-minded fellow scientists should be prepared to argue their case in a public debate with equal time being given to the alternative scientific opinion. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that such an objective debate can be had.

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Professor Beddington is to be succeeded by Sir Mark Walport who is reported to have endorsed a report to the BBC Trust by Professor Steve Jones advising that the Corporation should show more rather than less bias on man-made climate change.

Furthermore, Professor Beddington is, in fact, an expert on population biology, his successor a specialist in immunology and Professor 
Jones a geneticist specialising 
in snails.

In these circumstances, I am not confident that any future policy of power generation 
will have as its foundation 
sound theory or objective 
fact.