Letters in the Jan. 17 Guardian confirm the almost universal reference to climate change in a great deal of public discourse.
It is mentioned as if it is as true as the sun rising in the morning.
There is no questioning and this leads to a kind of lemming-like tendency to jump off the cliff in total confidence of a soft landing because we are erecting large scale wind and solar generation and demanding the end of fossil fuels.
It is presented as an effective and morally sound solution to the most serious crisis humanity has ever faced.
There is an absence of thinking through the consequences of such action.
Sadly, I have found that many of the people mouthing these truisms have read nothing on the science.
We are urged to attend to the science. But when we do, we find ample evidence that there is still a debate.
I have read from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to the outright deniers.
Nowhere have I found a definitive correlation between CO2 emissions and global warming.
The models are not accurate. The science is not settled.
Why do I bother? Because I don't want my children to struggle in an economy ruined by green mismanagement of energy, with acres of dead solar panels that nobody knows how to recycle, and forests of rusting tumbling wind turbines that nobody can afford to dismantle, of unaffordable electricity, and the sight of people foraging for a few sticks of firewood to cook dinner.
That's the catastrophe that I see as a result of the current hysteria.
The other reason to care is that this issue is diverting our attention from many real problems such as identified by David Weale in his letter of the same day. That is truly a cause for alarm.
Peter Noakes,
Charlottetown
