Dear Editor,
Stephen Carter’s letter, ‘Hot Topic’, en Oct, stated that ‘data from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) simply doesn’t support … climate alarmism’. On the contrary, IPCC’s Sixth Report, Part II, 28 February 2022, is headed: ‘Climate change: a threat to human wellbeing and health of the planet’ and states that: ‘This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction… (Hoesung Lee, Chair, IPCC).’ And, most ‘alarming’ of all: ‘Any further delay … will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.’
Relief organisations are censured for ‘claiming that droughts have been brought about by climate change’, again without IPCC support. On the contrary, its Report (see above) states that ‘human-induced climate change … is affecting the lives of billions of people’; that ‘people least able to cope are being hardest hit’; and that ‘Increased heatwaves, droughts and floods … have exposed millions of people to acute food and water insecurity’. [For a more recent treatment of this, see https://www.drdavidgolding.com/post/harvest-23-will-you-mark-it-with-celebration-or-lament]
And then we had that ‘old chestnut’ that there have always been ‘adverse weather events’ – the ‘mini ice age’, etc. Yes, but these were temporary, regional (not global) variations in the climate (see Raphael Neukom et al., Nature pp.571,550–554, 2019), whereas ‘it is unequivocal [i.e, beyond dispute – an established fact] that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, etc.’ of the whole planet and that ‘recent changes in the climate are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years’ (IPCC Report, Part I, 9 August 2021). ‘Unprecedented’, because humanity has never before raised the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere from 280ppm in preindustrial times, to 420ppm now (source, NOAA, 10 October 2023) – an increase of 50%. As Al Gore put it in 2007: ‘People will look back and ask: ‘What were you thinking of? Didn’t you care?”!’
It is high time we moved on from such ‘pleasant illusions’ (Isa.30.10), which are now as unreasonable (and reprehensible) as, say, denying the causation of AIDS by HIV. They do nothing but foster in the Christian community a sinful complacency, encourage it to continue to neglect its responsibilities in this matter, and bring its reputation into disrepute.
Yours sincerely,
David W. Golding CBE PhD DSc DCL
Whitstable, Kent;
Voluntary Spokesperson for Tearfund.
