Disgraceful behaviour of British delegation to recent climate change conference in Russia

Dear Editor, 'Pravda'

First, thank you for encouraging foreign readers to write letters to 'Pravda.ru'. Secondly, I should like to apologise for what appears to have been the disgraceful behaviour of the British delegation to the recent climate change conference held in Russia. I believe Russia is doing the world a great service by questioning the wisdom of the Kyoto Protocol and of the 'science' behind the idea of 'global warming'. I can assure
you that many people in the UK are deeply unhappy with the current position of the British government on the climate change issue.

When it comes to discussing climate change, we should always ask three specific questions. Is climate changing? Of course it is. Climate change is the norm, not the exception. No climate change would really be worthy of report. Are humans having some influence on climate change? Of course they are. And they have been since *Homo sapiens* introduced agriculture
and major landscape change. We influence climate in many ways, and not just through the politically-selected factor of carbon dioxide emissions. Unfortunately, we also know very little about most of these influences. But thirdly, we come to the absolutely key question. Can we manage climate (and here is the operative word) *predictably* by fiddling at the margins with just one factor out of the millions that drive climate change? 100% no. This is the great, and most dangerous, myth at the heart of the current European 'faith' in 'global warming'.

The idea that we can maintain a 'sustainable climate' is just scientific nonsense; indeed, the very concept of a 'sustainable climate'  is an oxymoron. One must always remember that, in a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system as complex as climate, not doing something is as unpredictable as doing something.

I thus very much hope that Russia and President Putin will think twice about ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. It is indeed an authoritarian and neo-colonialist construct that neither suits the new Russia nor will aid the growing Russian economy.

Yours faithfully,

Philip Stott,
Professor Emeritus of Biogeography in the University of London, UK