An open letter to the Sheffield Star. Time to take editorial control.

You must start exercising some editorial control over your letters page. Nearly every day you print yet another epistle from Neville Martin containing dangerous and extreme anti-science propaganda. His latest effort is a classic. He quotes the thoroughly debunked article “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” by Arthur B Robinson which he claims is endorsed by over 31000 named scientists. This article has not been peer-reviewed. None of the “scientists” have been verified and they have included Charles Darwin, a member of the Spice Girls and a character from Star Wars! Robinson is a Republican politician with lots of good friends in the oil industry. His co-author Willie Soon received over $1.2 million from the fossil fuel industry, while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his work. Surely when Mr Martin so kindly gives his references you could check them to see if they hold water? But instead, you publish it, creating more doubt among your readers about the urgent need to act on the climate emergency.

Today it has been reported that Antarctica has experienced a new record temperature of 20.75 degrees centigrade.

Residents who have been flooded twice already this year don’t need convincing that our climate is changing. What they want is action to keep them safe in future.

Climate change deniers have created a culture which has excused lack of action from Governments and international institutions over the last 30 years. What we need to debate now is how we are going to adapt to an increasingly hostile climate and what emergency measures should be taken to rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Graham Wroe

References

Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. 2007. The controversial article Neville Martin quoted.

https://www.jpands.org/vol12no3/robinson.pdf

Skeptical Science debunking the article

https://skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect-basic.htm

Wikipedia-Art Robinson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Robinson

The Oregon Petition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition

Willie Soon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon