Another reply to Dr. Alsop. I do not know how I got into this correspondence in the Manx Independent but I've sent this reply to Dr Alsop's letter published 3.11.06. It was not published.

Sir,

Like Dr. Alsop, I agree any debate on the monetary value of human life is fraught with many ethical problems. However, to inform him as he requests, presently an estimated 150,000 people die annually because of global climate change due to air pollution, extreme heat events, infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever etc. The ability of human systems to adapt to and cope with climate change depends on wealth, technology, education, information,skills, infrastructure, access to resources and management. The least developed countries are more vulnerable.

His continuing support for the Copenhagen Consensus is interesting. Does he know that this report was funded partly from the Saskawa Peace Foundation, which had been started by a Japanese fascist and organised crime figure with links to Rev. Moon's Unification Church? Moreover, the report's main advocate, Bjorn Lomberg, may be a statistician but he has never published a single article in the scientific press regarding climate change.

I do not understand how Dr. Alsop can assert that "the battle, if not the argument, (on green taxation), has been lost in the U.K." Where is the evidence, statistical or otherwise, for this statement?

It is agreed that there are many uncertainties surrounding climate science and the best way forward. However, to sustain my view that there is consensus in the scientific community on the reality of anthropogenic climate change, I point out that 100% of a sampling of 928 articles on climate change in the recent scientific press supported the consensus view that a significant fraction of recent climate change is due to human activities. I will have to leave it to the statisticians to tell us what fraction and what activities!

Finally in answer to Dr. Alsop's recollection that "equally prominent scientists warned us 30 years ago that we were entering a new ice age" I would say the scientific community predicted nothing of the sort. This myth, mainly from the alarmist popular press, came from three sources. First, global temperatures did cool slightly in the 1940's until 1970, but the scientific community cautioned against interpreting anything from short temperature records. Second, there were investigations at the time about the mechanisms for past Ice Ages suggesting one every 20,000 years recently revised to 50,0000 i.e. not in the near future. Third, research was also being conducted on the potential for sulphate aerosols to have a cooling atmospheric effect, as indeed was the case for the period 1940-70. The research at the time was robust and did not support this myth, which Dr. Alsop repeats.

Sincerely,

Charles Flynn.