SIR – John Hall and Keith Thomson (T&A, April 12) were quick to jump to the defence of the establishment on the subject of global warming.

Mr Hall suggests extreme weather is a result of climate change, yet both the Nature journal (editorial of 19/9/12) and the leaked IPCC AR5 report agree ‘extreme weather events’ cannot reliably be linked to increased CO2.

Another interesting real fact is that airborne CO2 has increased eight per cent since 1997, while temperature hasn’t; this is acknowledged by Dr James Hansen of Columbia University.

I could quote real scientific papers all day, just as Mr Hall and Thompson could quote ‘official Government figures’ or Wikipedia entries, but this is not going to solve our potential energy crisis.

We can either follow the climate agenda of building windmills and taxing people to death, or we can choose to keep the lights on with nuclear, clean coal and shale gas.

Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford