Dear Editor
Re: Climate Change Articles by Helen Grond
I am writing in response to articles written by Helen Grond published in the last two issues of The Island Grapevine. While the premise of her articles was to ‘Give Science a Chance’ when seeking to understand climate change, the link provided to support her argument was to a rambling website (Climate Conservative Consumer, www.c3headlines.com) overflowing with conspiracy theories poorly disguised as science. ‘Conspiracies are fostered by commercial and ideological interests that seek to benefit from muddying the waters around climate change (eg fossil fuel companies, libertarian think tanks).
Ms Grond’s assertion that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has ignored accepted science on historical climate change is wholly unsupported by her writings. She has not provided evidence to support her argument that the current IPCC modelling methods do not incorporate historical data.
Models, despite Ms Grond’s comments, do not predict anything. They are tools used to develop scenarios or possible futures against which public policies can be tested and the outcomes of those policies better understood. To refer to them as predictive misses their intended use as valuable tools for analysis.
Patricia Gordon, Denman Island
