Dear Lord Rees
Let me begin by quoting in part a letter from you to me dated as long ago as 20 April 2007. You wrote:
“We have on our website a detailed response to some of the comments made in the Channel 4 programme last month. The issues are sufficiently important that they deserve wide discussion, but this should be on the basis of the best scientific evidence.”
During the intervening three and a half years, in essentials, “the best scientific evidence” has changed hardly at all. In colloquial terms, a trace gas, amounting to less than 1/400th part of a single percentage point by volume of the atmosphere, continues to be branded as “the Great Satan”. As such tens, nay hundreds, of billions of taxpayers funds in consequence continue to be squandered.
So, there’s the background. Now, though, from the Royal Society, we have this morning the following:
“It is not possible to determine exactly how much the Earth will warm or exactly how the climate will change in the future.
“There remains the possibility that hitherto unknown aspects of the climate and climate change could emerge and lead to significant modifications in our understanding.”
There is also the acknowledgement that any warming “trend” seemingly represented by the 80s and 90s has ceased during the past decade.
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