Letter: Mailbag - Warming to the subject

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), Sept 8, 2008

Byline: JASON SMITH

DATA from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions has revealed that the ice caps of Mar's South Pole have been diminishing for three summers in a row.

Hadn't somebody better tell those Martians to stop burning fossil fuels and stop building new airports? Do these aliens not consider their carbon footprints? Maybe we should dispatch the millionaire environmentalist Dave Cameron to have a photo shoot on Mar's South Pole to highlight this latest environmental catastrophe?

Although, maybe there really aren't any Martians and there is another explanation? Well, according to Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars." Mr Abdussamatov has studied fluctuations in the warmth of the sun and believes he can see a pattern that fits with the ups and downs in climate we see on Earth and Mars.

Should we trust this eminent researcher and scientific NASA data or our 'doom and gloom' politicians with their ulterior motives?

Instead of 'global warming' should this phenomena not be named 'solar warming'?

JASON SMITH UK Independence Party Bradford Chairman