SIR – Peter A Rushworth (Letters, December 9) dares to suggest that “Nature is in command of our weather”.

He would do well to remember the threats made against Galileo Galilei when he discovered that the Earth was a sphere which orbited the sun, contrary to the Church’s official line that it was flat and if you travelled too far west you’d fall off the edge.

We are told that the current phase of global warming is caused by mankind’s contribution to the minuscule quantity, 354 parts per million, of carbon dioxide, a gas with a molecular weight of 46. This heaviest of atmospheric gases cannot reach the altitude at which it could exert a greenhouse effect, even if there were enough of it.

Yet we are relentlessly fed the tax-and-control official fairy story. Presumably, man-made carbon dioxide emissions on Mars are also responsible for the unprecedented rate at which the Martian polar ice caps are now melting.

A cyclical increase in solar heat output couldn’t possibly be the cause of that, could it? Nah, it’s the Martians burning fossil fuels!

Peter and I will now be due a visit from the global warming grand inquisitor.

Noel A Shaw, Thornton Road, Thornton