Relevant expertise

Enormous errors which appear to have been made in the international approach to biofuels are now becoming apparent.

One thing which has struck me is how self assured practitioners of disciplines such as economics or ecology are that they can solve the CO2 problem. Yet the people who have studied the most relevant clutch of subjects are engineers – whose voice has been lost.

Most engineers have studied physics, maths, chemistry, geology, statistics, thermodynamics, some economics and have a knowledge of machines. Yet many of the people making decisions such as those regarding biofuels are not familiar with these disciplines.

To make one simple point: the received opinion is that we "can all help reduce carbon emissions by reducing our carbon footprint" yet the history of the Industrial Revolution to the present day shows that individuals using energy more efficiently leads paradoxically to increased worldwide hydrocarbon consumption

I am not a climate change "denier" but believe that effective action is being delayed because of basic misunderstandings such as these.

Bruce Latimer (M), latimer@ic24.net