It was refreshing to read George Ferguson's contribution on Climate Change (Post, December 14).

The honest scientific community agrees the facts – average global temperature rise is linked to rising levels of carbon dioxide.

However the general public is still missing a further fundamental point. People believe that if we can get CO2 emissions down, to a rate that is still a significant fraction of the current rate, then we will stabilise the situation long-term. Wrong.

It is a simple fact that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans that is released by burning fossil fuel is cumulative. Once burned, it is in the ecosystem virtually forever. There is no plausible means of removing it.

As long as we produce CO2 from fossil fuel, it will continue to increase in the atmosphere. It will take hundreds of thousands of years to reduce naturally. The many obvious observed changes already caused are irreversible. Even we stopped burning all fossil fuel immediately, CO2 will not dissipate magically.

And yet we carry on burning fossil fuel at an ever-increasing rate.

Rain forests do not absorb CO2 because they either decay or are felled. Decay gives carbon dioxide and methane, felling gives carbon dioxide because material is later burned. Controlled burning of wood is acceptable because trees can be replaced.

The carbon in trees is already in the ecosystem and will only decay if not burned. The amount of carbon, and thus energy, held in wood is small compared with that in fossil fuels which is why fossil fuels and not wood are used for transport and electricity generation.

Dr James Hansen, the NASA weather scientist, recognised global warming in the Eighties and it has taken all that time since for it to be generally accepted. It is beyond belief that today we hear that air travel expansion will be allowed to continue while other users are expected to cut their consumption by 80 per cent. Any generally acceptable targets will be totally inadequate to meet the need.

The public are being misled by people with opinions rather than facts and the naysayers are preaching a very dangerous message.

Roger English, MIET.

IT appears that, as being something of a climate change sceptic, I am one of the large majority of people in Britain who Gordon Brown describes as 'flat earth' followers.

This is unsurprising, for over the past decade we have been subject to so much Government spin and misinformation that it is impossible to give credence to the integrity of Government statements on any significant issue, including climate change.

In recent weeks, we have witnessed the scandal of scientists at the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) manipulating world temperature data to prove global warming.

When caught, they somehow were able to lose the basic data upon which their predictions were founded.

Our own Met Office is not without some culpability. Its forecasts and predictions about our own weather have been consistently wrong, yet they are strong supporters of the CRU global warming predictions.

Their latest findings are that this is "the warmest decade since records began". My question is when did their records begin, for there is verifiable archaeological and geological evidence that there have been periods throughout British history when our climate was much warmer than this decade. I think they may be being a little disingenuous about this.

I am deeply concerned that many eminent climatologists who are critical of the global warming theory were not invited to participate at the Copenhagen Conference. Consequently, I suspect that the Conference findings will not be universally accepted.

The debate will linger on, like Kyoto, until the next time the UN decides to tackle the issue.

Giles Chichester, Conservative MEP for South West England and Gibraltar.

MAY I add to George Ferguson's comments that even if the sceptics are right and the climate isn't changing, we still need to take the same action.

Reducing our output of greenhouse gases is essentially a requirement to reduce our consumption. Not just of travel or heating fuel but of everything. Everything we use requires fuel somewhere along the line even if we don't realise it.

The United States of America uses 25 per cent of the world's resources but has a population of only 307 million. India has a population of 1,169 million and I am reliably informed that at least 921 million of them aspire to an American standard of living. That takes care of 100 per cent of the currently available resources.

Someone has calculated that for everyone to have a Western standard of living would require five planet Earths.

If the developing world is to continue developing we in the West have got to reduce our consumption. Or find another four planets!

So there is no excuse for not taking action – even for Nigel Lawson.

Barry Cash, Bishopston.