More on signs of (in)sanity.

'Sign of insanity' seems to be an appropriate title for the recent Leader (C&I 2008, 12, 4). As a long-time SCI member and C&I reader I have been impressed by the improvement in the content of C&I in recent times but it seems insane to throw it all away by letting yourself be taken in by the so-called 'Global Warming Petition' project.

I don't know where you got your initial information from but I can only assume that you have not followed it up with your own research before publication. Simply viewing the website of the OISM should sound a warning signal. Reading the wording of the petition should worry you further. Once you have done your research you will have a quite different view of the petition.

As for the validity of the claims of Robinson and his colleagues, I suggest you ask the excellent scientists at the UK's Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter (http:// www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/ hadleycentre/) to write you an article explaining why the bounce back from the 'Little Ice Age' is not the reason for the present global warming as Robinson suggests. This 'Little Ice Age' idea does the rounds repeatedly and needs putting to rest once and for all. C&I could do this job with the help of Hadley scientists.

Please don't be surprised at the claim that '31 000 US scientists' have signed the petition. After all, C&I has been taken in by the petition too! Not all scientists are climate experts. And 31 000 is only 0.0014% of the total of US scientists and engineers, ie about one in a thousand (http:// www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/ nsf08305/).

Peter Barnes

PJ Barnes & Associates, Bridgwater, Somerset, UK

Editor's note:

Part of C&I's role is to stimulate debate on science-related issues, and this particular Leader was written with that very much in mind. Scarcely a day goes by without climate change and global warming hitting the headlines, often with disparaging comments about any non-believers. And as the Leader pointed out, no other issue has resulted in such polarised views amongst C&I readers.

Rather than being synonyms for the same phenomenon, used by many interchangeably, climate change and global warming are in fact two distinct issues. Certainly there is evidence that climate change may be occurring but the big debate is whether that change is due to global warming, or, indeed, if global warming is actually caused by human activities--and this is where many scientists appear to disagree. The point of this particular Leader was to highlight that there is a not inconsiderable number of educated people who are not convinced by or do not believe the current theories on global warming, either in part or their entirety--and not as some might assume to provide support for any specific viewpoint.

Recent newspaper reporting demonstrates that in seeking the truth there are many red herrings. The UK newspaper The Independent recently reported that Arctic ice would disappear from the North Pole this year. Indeed earlier this year, the US National Snow & Ice Data Center reported that it was 'quite possible' that this might occur. Satellite imaging, however, has shown that rather than less, there is in fact more ice, a million extra square kilometres. Now the US center is only predicting that the Arctic may be ice-free 'by 2030'.

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Also in a recent Sunday Times newspaper, it was reported that Royal Navy logbooks from the 17th and 18th centuries are being studied for long-term weather data. Research so far has shown similar warming effects to those currently being experienced ocurred in the period before the industrial revolution. One of the researchers, a self-proclaimed supporter of global warming, also points out that climate science is complex and that it is wrong to take particular events and link them to C[O.sub.2] emissions.

As scientists we are taught to rigorously question theories and conduct research and experiments to support or indeed disprove our assumptions. History has shown that there are always dangers when scientists become obsessed with their views to the exclusion of all others.