DANGEROUS DENIAL - REVISITED

Following on from last week's letter in the Evesham Journal, which tried very hard to convince people that climate change might not really be happening, a small consortium of informed, wise and concerned citizens sent in a measured reply.

The substance of Dr Dine's original letter was drawn from the ramblings of a former weatherman in the US, a guy called Art Horn, who has found a new role for himself. He now gives talks in the hope of convincing American waverers that the whole climate change-renewable energy row has been whipped up by certain industries looking to make a fast buck.

Anyone who believes such a monstrous thing is fooling themselves.

Naturally, such climate change denial plays into the hands of the anti-windfarm nimbies, who will clutch at any straw going to justify their unnecessary, thoughtless opposition to the proposed Lenchwick development. And, given the hot air that has risen like a cloud over the Lenches ever since ScottishPower Renewables announced that they were surveying the area for a possible windfarm, more misleading nonsense really is the last thing we need.

In contrast to the biased noodlings of Art Horn and his isolated followers, there are the considerations of Dr James Lovelock, the esteemed British scientist who first came up with the Gaia theory (the Earth is basically a self-regulating organism). Alternatively, you might like to pick up a copy of New Scientist magazine, where the scientists are sounding increasingly scared about climate change and angry about the failure of politicians and the media to get the message out there.

As this lecture of Dr Lovelock's makes clear (http://www.jameslovelock.org/page24.html), real scientists are no longer being all that sanguine about man-made climate change. To put it another way, they're terrified. They have peered into the abyss - the genuine, imminent threat of global catastrophe - and they realise that urgent, far-reaching action is desperately needed. It is long overdue. And cretinous "It's not really happening" arguments, like those advanced by Art Horn and Dr Dine, do nothing but confuse people, creating the pretence that we have nothing to worry about.

The truth is, we should be more than worried. We should be reaching out for solutions, gladly embracing anything that might defend us against the horrors of climate change as anticipated by the majority of international scientists.

The situation is clear. While a small number of muddle-heads and busy-bodies try to hoodwink the general public, the global situation is worsening and the outlook looks increasingly desperate. And while all this is going on, Boycies all over the country are regurgitating lies and ludicrous nonsense in the hopes of avoiding having a windfarm near them.

With the facts as they are, these people cannot be allowed to succeed. Windfarms, like the relatively small development at Lenchwick, are a vital part of the future. Other countries have realised this, and it's really only in the UK (where a generation has grown up believing that a bit of money excuses you from social responsibility) that deranged nimbyism is holding up the implementation of an elegant and effective solution to this pressing problem.

There is no excuse - there can be no excuse - for opposing a modern, safe, near-silent windfarm in your local area. No amount of lies can alter the facts.

We need that windfarm, and hundreds - nay, thousands - like it. The objections raised by the self-centred protesters of VVASP are specious. The reality, as acknowledged by noted scientists, is so grim that such self-serving behaviour constitutes a crime against humanity.

So three cheers for those individuals who wrote to the Journal to expose Dr Dine's letter as being based on the shoddy 'science' of a passionate deceiver.

Will those same individuals now stand up to trumpet the Lenchwick Windfarm and denounce the muppets of VVASP as misguided, deluded and dangerously out of touch?