Whilst usually enjoying reading Rogers Rabbits column it seemed to me that the paper's editor was deluded by a visiting British peer (The Weekend Sun April 12).
Monckton can have his beliefs just like those who still believe that this world was created in a week about 6,000 years ago, but there's an old saying 'ugly facts can ruin a beautiful theory”.
Climate change is not a political issue and is not even a debate. It is science and Rabbit might learn a few scientific facts by watching next Sunday's National Geographic program at 9.30PM on Sky TV or the online film to be released on Earth Day later this month (see www.thiniceclimate.org).However, he could also ponder as to how the Peruvian Quelcaya icecap at 5670 metres above sea level and the largest tropical glacier in the world, has shrunk to the smallest it's been for 6000 years with 1600 years of ice having melted over the past 25 years and lakes appearing with 'fresh” plants that must have been frozen for over 5000 years (Science April 4). The huge Himalayan glaciers feeding the Ganges are melting at an accelerating rate according to monitoring photos over the past 50 years with concerns that the Ganges could even cease to provide water for vast areas of the Indian subcontinent. The well-monitored Alaskan and northern Canadian glaciers are now disappearing at an increasing rate. Even the Franz Josef glacier has retreated by 1 km according to photographic evidence.

The planet is doing something it hasn't done for 12,000 years. The political issue may be what percentage of man's polluting is causal and thus potentially remedial, but our grandchildren will experience the consequences. Unfortunately but predictably, the petrodollar buys a lot of political leverage.

M. Godfrey, Whakamarama.