I RESPOND to Derek Mann’s letter (Opinion, August 17) in which he criticised Brian Gordon for “having his head in the sand” when expressing an opinion that climate change is natural rather than man-made.

Mr Mann asserted that the difference between climate warming and mankind’s effect on it was irrelevant, without reference to costs and complexities.

Although in advocating diversity, he virtually accepted that the contentious issue is open-ended.

So shouldn’t the debate between scientific opinion and the economists and oil industry sceptics be allowed to develop?

The inter-government panel on climate change is also said to contain a raft of predictions about disasters facing the world as a result of man-made global warming although sceptics believe fluctuatuions in global temperatures are just another natural cycle, supported by scientists with impeccable credentials and emeritus professors of universities in the USA.

Yet the prevailing message seems to be that the predictions of the IPCC about carbon emissions are consummate, beyond reservation but for an issue of such magnitude, where only one argument is upheld, there must be a cause for widespread meaningful debate.

The futility of intermittent wind power and the ineffectiveness of renewable energy was outlined clearly by Brian Gordon and was worthy of constructive appraisal, but those aspects were not addressed by Mr Mann.

Consequently, if Coun Gordon’s views about global warming derived from having his head “in the sand”, he must not have been alone.

Coun J H Hirst, Beardwood with Lammack Ward.