Trevor Scott, Castlemaine
Hal Curwen-Walker (‘Malthusian scaremongering’, Opinions, August 28), says that the Californian bushfires are not evidence of climate change. Are over a thousand bushfires in NSW already this August, not enough evidence for you?
Well-known American scientist James Hansen of NASA, testified before Congress in 1988 (i.e. 30 years ago!) that there was a real warming trend linked to human activity. This was followed in 2006 by some hard scientific evidence about global warming in a film called An Inconvenient Truth by former vice-president of the USA, Al Gore.
You say in your letter ‘Total area destroyed by bushfire has decreased by approximately 50 per cent since 2008 and the trajectory is downwards’. Where on earth does this doubtful statistic come from?
