2005-11-23,+Evidence+for+disaster+a+scam,+BDay


 * Business Day, Johannesburg, Letters, 21 October 2005**

= Evidence for disaster a scam =

Your report, Small farmers “to bear brunt of storm” (October 18), on claims by Environment Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk that we face disaster, refers.

According to him, scientists have warned that climate change will involve excessive heat, drought, rising sea levels an increase in waterborne diseases and deforestation. We know the world has become more than 1C° warmer over the past 150 years. The remaining claims are suspect.

A recent study of rainfall by Prof Will Alexander, erstwhile professor of hydrology at the University of Pretoria, has shown that the world has become wetter over the past 150 years, not drier.

When faced by this evidence, scientists reply that parts of SA have become drier — which is true — and that their models show that it will become drier still. They cannot explain why their models don’t show what happened in the past.

The world has grown warmer, so we should see some increase in sea levels.

One of the best measures I have found is Robben Island, which is a flat mound in a tectonically stable area. Charts of 150 years ago are indistinguishable from modern charts — there has been no detectable rise in the sea level.

Scientists claimed malaria would increase as it got warmer. Richard Tren, of Malaria in Africa, was one of the first to point out that malaria was spread by public health failures, not heat.

The scientists didn’t apologise for their mistake, they merely changed the language from "malaria” to “waterborne disease”.

Deforestation? We have much more forest than we used to have 150 years ago. The scientists complain that much of the growth is commercial forestry, and that natural forests have become fewer. Is that due to the weather, the spread of farming, more rural people harvesting wood for fuel, or what?

Why would the scientists be so keen to avoid criticism of their predictions? Because they get fed lots of lovely lolly, so the minister can stand up and claim to be saving us all from a fate worse than death.

Philip Lloyd Rosebank