I make that 12 comments disagreeing with Henderson to none in support.

The global warming because of humans scare is junk science. And while we fritter away billions of pounds supporting this, millions of human beings on our planet remain under-fed, blighted by disease and living in penury. How selfish is that?

Also, an interesting point has been made by Richard North concerning the 'global warming' scientists have measured on Mars, one of Neptune's moons (Triton), Jupiter and Pluto - where us humans have yet to set-up shop. Pray tell Mark, how come they're warming too? It couldn't be, could it, the effect of the Sun?

John Booker, Norwich, England

Oh dear, to draft in the 'authority' of evolution to bolster the new orthodoxy of human responsibility for climate change is a bit like wrapping yourself in a moth-eaten rag to keep out a March gale. Aren't Times Columnists aware that science is a dynamic animal & that comes through ...dare I say it, dissent?

Simon Ferguson, Llanelli,

Hey, wait a minute. The debate on climate change ,the causes , the level of human contribution to the phenomenon, this scientific examination is not yet fully begun never mind completed. The argument is largely emotive and there are no proven findings and conclusions presented, so how can Government take the right actions at this point ?
At this moment in time, you and other journalists and pundits sound like Tony Blair in 1997 when he said "We have 24 hours to save the NHS."
Come to think of it, Government failures on Health, Education, Policing (to say nothing on foreign policy) can be neatly forgotten about if we all "move" on to this new area of concern. No doubt in ten years time we shall be reading in your column (if you have the job) how the Labour Government went down a wrong path and wasted vast sums of taxpayers money. Again.

chaplain, canterbury,

The headline says it all - "........how the penny dropped for politicians".
I assume Henderson means the Tax Penny. What a great opportunity this is for ploiticians to raise loads of taxes (pennies, pounds - what do they care) as long as they can control both our activities and our hard earned money. What a scam & all based on dubious pseudo science.
Are there no sensible, rational & honest politicians out there who are willing to put their heads above the parapet and expose this new religious zealotry for what it is?

M. Golding, Manchester, UK

The Earth is about 10 billion times heavier than all humans and our possessions. We can't control the temperature of the Earth, any more than we can control its flight through space. I doubt that the human race could even warm up, say, Lake Superior by 4 degrees centrigrade over 40 years, however hard we tried.

Fortunately, the theory of human-induced global warming, now about twenty years old, is gradually being disproved by experiment. The climate in London, where I live, has been the same during the last thirty years (we still get snow occasionally, for example). If it's still the same in ten years' time (which I'm sure it will be), environmentalists will have to face the increasingly crushing argument, "yes, but nothing's happened, so you're wrong."

I hugely enjoyed "The Great Global Warming Swindle", although I prefer my simple calculation above to the more complicated arguments in the programme. The brave scientists on the programme remind me of Galileo.

Martin, London,

This is the NEW world order and I am a heretic! Mark Henderson obviously sees his job evaporating along with the CO2 debate. I find the arrogance of these eco-warriors amazing. Let us all live back in the middle ages, well not all of us, just the working and middle classes who make up the majority of this country's population. I fear that socialist idealism is coming in through the back door. Capatilism is the great satan and every tree hugger cannot believe that politicians really want to save the planet? What do they care? This is all about money, greed, power and control. Welcome back the middle ages, kings, lords, landowners and the other 98% of us commoners. As Michael Crichton book pointed out - this is all about a 'STATE OF FEAR'

Craig Musgrove, Atherstone, Warwickshire

Yet another article pandering to the chicken licken theory. Scientists are smart enough to realise that if you come along with some half credible pseudo-science which is big and scary enough to make people notice, you can screw a research budget out of it. From all the theories in the past 10 years, ranging from asteroid impacts to volcanic armaggeddon, global warming is just the latest bandwagon that's been jumped on. A new tax, employment sector and control mechanism has been invented and people are willingly giving up freedoms due to this rhetoric. Where is the tax money going? Where are the "green initiatives"? Why does Al Gore launch an energy and resource-eating TV station (probably the least "green" thing possible to do) after his eco-warrior film?
Personally, I find any climate prediction ridiculous, coming from the same establishments and science that can't even accurately predict the weather 24 hours in advance, let alone say what climate conditions will be like in 50 years.

Pete North, manchester,

The problem with Mark Henderson's approach is that while the evidence for global warming is strong, the evidence for the link between human activities and global warming is weak. Moreover, cosmic rays have recently been shown under laboratory conditions to, at the very least, have the potential to engender cloud formation. He is also guilty of crooked thinking by drawing a parallel between global warming theory and evolutionary theory (for which the evidence is incontrovertable and withstands the test of falsifiability) since the evidence for mans responsibility for the former is essentially because the one is occurring it must be responsible for the other, without any demonstrable link being firmly established. Mans responsibility for global warming is a cult and you cant beat unfounded beliefs effectiveness in uniting people in common cause.

Arnold Ward, Weybridge, Surrey, UK

The worry must be that the politicians will become so engrossed in the notion that they can "reverse climate change" that they will miss the fact that the focus for the action we need is constantly changing. Changing light bulbs was a good idea ten years ago, but now it's largely a gesture - those who haven't done it of their own free will already will likely resist any coercion from the government.

The northward spread of crop, livestock and human diseases does not care what the root causes of climate change are, and neither should the people whose job it is to address these diseases. I do hope that now the politicians are all singing from the same hymn sheet, they don't discover it's the hymn sheet from last week's service.

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

Does Tony Blair really believe that the Chinese and Indians will spend their time acting on a theory, which as I understand it states that a naturally occuring gas that constitutes a fraction of 1% of our atmosphere both has an effect on temperature and can be controlled!, when they have millions of empty bellies to worry about?

Global Warming is a rich world obsession, part of the enviromentalist culture that seems to be replacing religion in our society.

Glyn Bolton, New Malden,

It's all very well the politicians bleating on about emmisions in the UK but have any of them been to Calcutta, Mumbai, Bangkok or any other of the major cities in Africa or Asia...try and breath there!!

I think we're doing very well using technology to reduce emmisions without more taxes.

Incidentally, do people in Notting Hill and Islington make more than 'one short haul flight a year'?

Robin Beckett, houston, texas, United States

Mark Henderson is guilty of exactly the same hubris he criticises the 'climate change deniers' of. (notice how close this sounds to 'holocaust denier' - no accident I think) The science he quotes is way open to interpretation. The key point is that climatology is a relatively new and unimaginatively complex science for which there is little long term data. The computer models used to predict the future climate are notoriously unreliable. Therefore it is not acceptable to risk huge damage to industry and the economy and people's livlihoods simply because a little bit of self denial and hair shirtism appeals to the hand wringing chattering classes.

Dr Kevin Law, Dundee, UK

Well done C4 I always thought the global warming hysteria was myth and a method of supressing the masses and other developing nations. Of course the wealthy will still be able to afford to drive and fly, but for the ordinary man in the street freedom will be curtailed. When we are all forced to travel by donkey and trap will the increase in animals create even more C02? Then what!! Of course, when pensioners can no longer afford to heat and light their homes the population should decrease through natural wastage and hence C02 should reduce. We are all being led up the garden path by those who will benefit most from these lies we are being fed.

Stuart Jones, Buxton/Derbyshire, UK