I would like to respond to your correspondent David Gillam’s doom-laden and inaccurate letter of August 27, headed Crossroads.

To take one statement: ‘Scientists are clear that global emissions must be cut by half by the end of this decade ... to have a reasonable chance of keeping temperature rises to below 1.5 degrees.

Not all scientists (including the writer) agree with this and even if they did then it should be noted that eliminating all carbon emissions in UK would have an entirely insignificant effect on the global total.

Perhaps Extinction Rebellion should turn its attention to China which is probably the greatest emitter of ‘man-made’ CO2 on the planet.

Now for some facts: the Earth has been in existence for some 4.54 billion years, the modern form of humans (homo sapiens) for around 200,000 years and data on global temperatures only go back about 150 years.

The current concern about rising temperatures is very recent compared with the above figures and is being used by extremists in an attempt to panic the UK government into precipitate, and very likely useless, action at huge expense and great inconvenience to tax payers.

It should be pointed out that seismic activities (earthquakes and volcanoes) regularly contribute millions of tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Other major contributors to global warming (or cooling) include solar activity and oscillations in the Earth’s orbit.

What do Extinction Rebellion intend to do about these?

Of course, we are all concerned about pollution in the earth’s atmosphere but let us be very cautious about how we use the word emergency.

Finally, may I suggest that ‘Climate Change’ should be renamed ‘Climate Variability’?

John Driver
Burford
Tenbury Wells