Nothing cranky about climate change scepticism

Sir—Neil Licence writes in last week’s Advertiser about the UKIP manifesto, and I was disgusted to see that he was attempting to drag science into the political arena.

I am not a UKIP supporter, I am writing as someone who believes that science involves keeping an open mind and questioning received theories.

To claim that climate scepticism is somehow the preserve of “cranks”, as he puts it, is sheer nonsense. Simply shouting childish insults doesn’t add anything to the debate. Cllr License may be on the Board of Governors of Rotherham College of Art and Technology, but nobody with respect for education would treat this subject as a political football.

Slavish obedience to climate alarmist hysteria is costing all of us a great deal of money (apart, of course, from those who gain by it, like Al Gore and David Cameron’s father-in-law).

If Cllr License would like to start an informed debate on these pages then I’m sure that many others would join in.

In the end I can’t help agreeing with Tony Benn’s uncle, who said: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”

Chris Thompson, Radford Close, Ravenfield.