DEAR John Curry – your latest letter (Global warming solutions) continues to trouble me.

You refer to “wacky conferences which neutralised acid rain and plugged the hole in ozone layer.”

This puzzles me. I was always under the impression that acid rain had been prevented by desulphurising the flue gases in coal-fired power stations. Cause and effect.

I also read that the ozone layer was, er, plugged, by the phasing-out of CFCs and HCFC gases in refrigeration and as propellants. Cause and effect.

Now it is true that there were ‘wacky conferences’ in the run-up to these actions, but I think it’s more sensible to conclude that the conferences agreed the action which dealt with the problem. As should have happened in Cancun – although only limited agreement was reached. So climate change will continue.

Incidentally, if you think snow in north Northumberland suggests we’ve fixed global warming you need to get out more. There is a whole world out there and 2010 is expected to be around the third warmest year since 1850, globally.

So I still wonder why you think these problems just go away after a ‘wacky conference’. Might you be able to share your evidence through the pages of the Gazette? Or could it be that you are perhaps talking a load of ignorant rubbish?

David Farrar,

Swansfield Park Road,

Alnwick

http://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/