Sirs,
I read with interest your account of this conference in this week’s Marlborough News. From your account, it did not seem that any contrary views were expressed.
Were the audience aware that about 15,000 years ago the world was in the grip of an ice age, Scotland was under an ice sheet 2 kilometres thick and the ice reached as far south as the Thames?
In the ensuing centuries it gradually got warmer without any significant anthropogenic effect. There were not that many people around and they had no access to fossil fuels. This warming has continued to the present day and its cause is unknown. There are various theories, the rotation of the earth, its orientation, and the elliptical path of circulation around the sun are possibilities. This warming process has continued with some up’s and downs to the present day.
So if fossil fuel emissions over the last 200 years have an effect, they are merely enhancing an already natural process which is beyond our control. It would be much better for us to concentrate on dealing with other problems like war, population growth, and pollution, problems that are within our power to deal with, rather than net zero.
Yours,
Alan Oliver
Marlborough
Remembrance, Marlborough, 2022
