It's not all proven fact (From Western Telegraph)

It's not all proven fact

1:27pm Friday 24th August 2012 in Letters

REGARDING a recent letter from Gordon James of the Friends of the Earth.

I find it very hard to take it seriously because he admits that global warming has not been a proven fact. On the contrary, every time we have bad weather – floods, snow, storms etc – it is publicised that said weather hasn’t occurred since or that weather such as this has not occurred since the beginning of weather records. If similar weather has occurred years ago and there is a record of that weather, then it has happened in the past and is not necessarily linked to global warming.

With all the labour, plant and equipment utilised in the Sea Empress disaster in our Haven, no figures have ever been released relating to the percentage of oil recovered in relation to that on board the tanker. If there were, I am sure it would be a small amount of the actual cargo on the tanker in total.

Looking at it from another angle, from 1914 to 1918, the ships and cargo sunk by both sides in the war was astronomical, yet there was no clean up possible for the majority of said wrecks.

Twenty-one years later we had the Second World War, the figures indicate that millions of tonnes were sent to the bottom of the sea.

However, once again, there was very little clean up in those days.

So is global warming the result of burning fossil fuels? The bottom line of this debate is unfortunately that we need jobs, and responsible, sensible people to take responsibility to review the environmental effects of projects where employment could be created.

Not just nay sayers who choose to focus on a small amount of information and form all their opinions based on that.

One final comment. Global warming is supposed to flood the world if all the ice melts. I am sure that I have missed some vital scientific explanation for this happening, because logically, I cannot see how ice melting could increase the water levels so dramatically.

Ice is the solid form of H2O, the mass of which is heavier and larger. When your pipes burst, it is because water has transformed into solid form and expanded. Therefore, my logic tells me that if 90% of the world’s ice melted and 60% is already underwater, the resulting increase in actual mass would be negligible.

To prove this; fill a jam jar with water and ice cubes until it spills. Put it on the counter until the ice melts and see if the water is running over the sides or at a lower level once all the ice has melted. There is no change in the level and no spillage.

WYN JENKINS Monkton Pembroke