I see a number of correspondents appear to be upset by my comments about the Global Warming Swindle programme.

Many indeed have emailed me their views, for which I am grateful.

There was indeed debate for a long time about whether the earth went round the sun, or the sun went round the earth.

Or whether smoking contributes to causing lung cancer.

We could certainly carry on debating these, and many others, but the majority of people accept the consensus of scientific opinion - other than those determined to hang on to their own theories.

I am not a scientist, though I endeavour to find out as much as possible about our climate, as a lay person.

People who have not researched the science of climate change for themselves may be interested in the comments of a past co-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), Sir John Houghton.

He has written a detailed critique of the programme, and I can do no better than to refer you to his arguments, point by point.

One issue on which there is most confusion with non-climate scientists is on the activity of the sun.

This is Sir John's comment: "Solar influences are the main driver of global average temperature in the 20th century" - Not true.

Changes in solar output together with the absence of large volcanoes (that tend to cool the climate) are likely to have been causes for the rise in temperature between 1900 and 1940.

However, the much more complete observations of the sun from space instruments over the past 40 years demonstrate that such influences cannot have contributed significantly to the temperature increase over this period.

Other possibilities such as cosmic rays affecting cloud formation have been very carefully considered by the IPCC (see the 3rd Assessment Report on the website ipcc.ch) and there is no evidence they are significant compared with the much larger and well understood effects of increased greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

And on the degree of climate change, Sir John says: "Climate is always changing" - true.

However, the programme also argued that changes in global average temperature over the last 50 years, and as projected for the 21st century, are within the range of natural climate variability as observed over the last few millennia - Not true.

Many of the prominent climate changes over past centuries have been regional in scale. Global warming is concerned with global changes.

The IPCC 4th assessment report summary for policymakers has a section summarising the conclusions of detailed studies using paleoclimate data.

It concludes that "Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1,300 years".

The internet is full or sites dealing with climate change The Coin website gives a great deal of information. See coinet.org.uk/information/ swindleresponse.

SARAH CLAYTON Longdown Road Epsom