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Date: January 18, 2004
Subject: Public tired of doom-and-gloom Kyoto ads
Re: "Federal Kyoto ads cost $17M, but no one remembers them", Dec 31.
I was pleased to see the statement in Kate Jaimet's article that only "some", not all, "scientists believe climate change is caused by an accumulation of [human induced] carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". Ms. Jaimet attended the November 2002 news conference in which I and several of my climate science colleagues explained that carbon-dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is very unlikely to have an appreciable effect on global climate.
It is possible that the public took little notice of the Environment Canada climate-change ads because people are getting tired of the government's doom-and-gloom interpretations of what are normal climatic variations. The department's nonsensical end-of-year extreme weather summary ("2003 weather was biblical in proportion: climatologist", Dec 30) demonstrates how the government is forcing climate science to fit pre-determined policy. This dishonest approach should be rejected outright by Paul Martin when he examines the Kyoto file.
The U.S. held open science hearings and, largely as a result, rejected the Kyoto Protocol. Canada should conduct such a process as well. If the science "backing" the accord is too shaky to withstand public scrutiny, then the treaty is worthless and Canada's agreement should be rescinded.
Dr. R. Tim Patterson
Professor of Geology (Paleoclimatology)
Department of Earth Sciences
College of Natural Sciences
Carleton University
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