2 cents worth from an educated consumer of the news. Reporters take note:

Copyright 1999 The Telegraph Group Limited
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
February 14, 1999, Sunday
"Avalanche of scorn on global warming "
Letter to the Editor by Philip Eden

I COULD scarcely believe my ears yesterday morning when I heard Kate Adie, introducing "From Our Own Correspondent" on Radio 4, say that scientists were blaming the heavy snow in the Alps and the avalanche at Chamonix on global warming. Oh, puhleeze!

Are these the same scientists who, after the virtually snow-free Alpine winters of 1988-89, 1989-90, 1991-92 and 1994-95, were warning us that global warming meant much less snow in the Alps in future decades? The European winter holiday industry, they said, would have to up sticks to Scandinavia.

I hesitate to revisit this subject. It is rather like swimming against the tide. Every time we have an unusual weather event, some clever Dick will suggest it has something to do with global warming. Somehow, I doubt that any reputable scientist was behind last week's comment linking the French avalanches with the changing climate. More likely it was some self-styled commentator who thinks that reading New Scientist every week qualifies him as an expert.

The common-sense view is simple. There is a warming trend in the planet's climate, part of which is probably due to the increasing emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But we do not yet know what proportion is due to this enhanced greenhouse effect, and what proportion is explained by the natural variation of the world's climate. Unusual weather events have always happened, and we do not need to point the finger at global warming to explain them. The same is true of exceptional or extreme months and seasons.

It is a logical fallacy to argue from the particular to the general. In the same way, the fact that the mayor of Chamonix says that there had not been such an avalanche in this part of the valley since 1908 does not, as some media pundits suggested, mean that this was the worst avalanche in the Alps (or even in Chamonix) for 90 years. Five minutes with my history books showed that, for instance, two major avalanches in early 1970 in the French Alps - in Val d'Isere and St Gervais - killed 114. And in 1951 a series of avalanches in Switzerland during February killed almost 100.

Please, Kate, the next time you have some unusual weather to report, see if you can do it without mentioning global warming.