Check the evidence

IT appears from the letter “Climate refugees” (Gazette, 7 August) that Mr McComb still suffers from the climate change derangement syndrome, despite the man-made global warming theory having been comprehensively trashed by the real-world climate.
This theory says that if the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, the world’s temperature necessarily increases.
Well, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been steadily increasing for many decades, but the world’s temperature hasn’t changed for 17 years.
That is called real-world evidence, in contrast to the computer models beloved of the climate modellers, and it negates the theory. It’s time to move on to another scare.
In any case, common sense tells us that the idea that a trace gas in the atmosphere controls the climate is absurd. Also, consider the following… Every atom of carbon in coal originally came from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which was absorbed by plants to produce carbohydrates. So burning coal is simply recycling the carbon back to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, where it came from. There is no geological evidence that all this carbon dioxide originally present was associated with dangerously higher temperatures – if it had been, how could all those plants have grown?
Rational open-minded people who have taken the trouble to check the evidence have always been astounded at the number of people who believe the man-made global warming theory, despite the fact that there has never been any evidence to support it.
However, this phenomenon, of large numbers of people believing something for which there is no evidence, is well known to psychologists, who call it the bandwagon effect.
Charles Mackay in his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) noted this phenomenon and observed: “Men think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.” Examples from last century are Eugenics and Lysenkoism.
Of course, government-funded climate modellers still push the climate change fantasy.
After all, if you had convinced the world to waste trillions of dollars on this fantasy, would you be inclined to risk your research dollars, your reputation, and even your salary by saying: “Oops! We made a little boo-boo. Carbon dioxide is entirely beneficial: it increases plant growth rate and, as satellite images show, is greening the earth.”?
The greatest moral challenge of our age is not “climate change”, it is to tell the truth.
John Rodda,
Senate candidate for the No Carbon Tax Climate Sceptics Party.
Pakenham.