GLOBAL WARMING 'IS GOOD AND IS NOT OUR FAULT'

Global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon and its effects can even be beneficial, according to two leading researchers.

Recent climate change is not caused by man-made pollution, but is instead part of a 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling that has happened for the last million years, say the authors of a controversial study.

Dennis Avery, an environmental economist, and Professor Fred Singer, a physicist, have looked at the work of more than 500 scientists and concluded that it is very doubtful that man-made global warming exists.

They also say that temperature increase is actually a good thing as in the past sudden cool periods have killed twice as many people as warm spells.

Mr Avery, a senior research fellow at the Hudson Institute, an independent US think-tank, said: "Not all of these researchers who doubt man-made climate change would describe themselves as global warming sceptics but the evidence in their studies is there for all to see.

"Two thousand years of published human histories say that the warm periods were good for people.

"It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine, plagues and disease."

In contrast, they say there is evidence that wildlife is flourishing in the current warming cycle with corals, trees, birds, mammals and butterflies adapting well.

In addition, sea-levels are not rising dramatically and storms and droughts have actually been less severe and frequent.

The authors claim that the change is not man-made because the most recent period of global warming took place between 1850 and 1940 when there were far less CO2 emissions than today.

They claim to show strong historical evidence of an entirely natural cycle based on data of floods on the Nile going back 5,000 years.

Evidence is citing showing records of Roman wine production in Britain in the first century AD.

Prof Singer, a specialist in atmospheric physics at the University of Virginia, said: "We have a greenhouse theory with no evidence to support it, except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events.

"The models only reflect the warming, not its cause."

They also say that natural temperature change can be caused by fluctuations in the sun.

The authors spent months analysing scientific reports and papers for their book, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.

Their aim was to undermine claims made by Al Gore, the former US vice-president, in his film An Inconvenient Truth, that shows the extent of man-made global warming.