Add grey shades to green debate 1

I have spent my entire working life battling against attempts to ram politically - and academically - convenient orthodoxies down my throat, and I certainly do not intend to be seduced now by the charms of "the green industry" and the environmental vested interests that feed it.

It was inevitable that the green industry would go on an hysterical offensive after Channel 4 recently screened the Great Global Warming Swindle programme. It may well be that some of the theories propounded in that programme, relating to the alleged origins of global warming, turn out to be wrong. But at least we are now having the debate - whether global warming is in any way man-made - that so many vested green interests would rather we did not have.

Whatever Bob Ward may wish (Opinion, May 4), the debate is not over. There is plenty of evidence around - leaving aside entirely the Channel 4 programme - that man has contributed very little, if anything, to global warming.

As a student of politics I know only too well how anxious governments are to stifle debate in order to impose their will on the rest of us. I am not a natural scientist, neither am I associated with the Centre for Policy Studies nor am I funded by the petrochemical industry. I am a lifelong non-smoker. But in relation to global warming, I take care to garner views across the widest possible spectrum of scientific opinion. I advise Bob Ward to do the same.

Geoffrey Alderman
Emeritus professor
Middlesex University