I READ Mr Mathew's response to my letter of last week and it contains inaccuracies that I would like to correct.

I pointed out that the Radcliffe Observatory has reported record January rainfall for this year. Mr Mathew has compared this with rainfall for October 1903. It is completely pointless to introduce rainfall figures for other months. Furthermore, the file from which Mr Mathew quotes gives averages for the whole of England and Wales, which will include areas that are very much wetter than Oxford, making the comparison doubly pointless.

I recorded 396 mm for January, considerably higher than any of the figures quoted by Mr Mathew, but that's not relevant, either.

Mr Mathew accuses me of gratuitously turning what Professor Collins said on its head. All I did was report what he had said and commented on what he did not say. If Professor Collins could rule out a connection between rainfall and global warming he would, no doubt, have said so. He didn't. I interpret this as sitting on the fence, which is a perfectly reasonable position to take, both for him and for me.

I'm baffled, once again, by Mr Mathew, when he 'juxtaposes' comments by Professor Mat Collins and Dame Julia Sligo. Professor Collins works for Exeter University and Dame Julia is the Chief Scientist at the Met Office. Why he thinks their opinions should correspond is beyond me. Dame Julia is prepared to come off the fence and Professor Collins isn't. So what?

Mr Mathew seems completely to misunderstand the rôle of the Intergovernmental  Panel on  Climate Change and criticises it for not carrying out research or monitoring. People on the panel are chosen just because they do not carry out the research. They have no particular axe to grind and are independent. They can assess the value of climate and weather research completely dispassionately and report to governments on their findings.

Finally, I come to Mr Mathew's comments on the precautionary principle, which he describes as 'absolutely insane'. I suspect that he is a house owner and that he has insurance policies covering the house and contents. If he is a car driver, he is required by law to have an insurance policy with third party coverage at least. Insurance is an everyday illustration of the precautionary principle. We pay money to cover ourselves in the event of something going wrong. If we have to pay extra for the generation of electricity by non-polluting means, that's pretty much the same as paying an insurance premium.

Climate change will affect us all and the government has decided that we all have to pay a premium to protect ourselves and others. I'm perfectly happy with that, although I would rather there were a more rapid introduction of low carbon electricity generation, particularly from waves and tides. Mr Mathew is perfectly entitled to his own opinion, but it seems to me that his are based largely on misunderstandings. I hope that I have helped to remove at least some of these.

K Vines

Horrabridge

ROGER Mathew seems to be totally unworried about the possibility of man-made climate change.  He is outraged however, about his petrol being 'adulterated'.   You couldn't make it up!

PS Have you seen the polar ice lately?

Chris Simpson

Warran Lane

Tavistock