GREATER Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s “vision for "greener Greater Manchester” (September 19) should be of grave concern to all people living and working within the region.

Mr Burnham’s ‘green summit’ and his handpicked panel made up of so-called experts will be a whitewash I have no doubt as conclusions have already been reached.

But I would still, however, like to challenge Mayor Burnham, if he has the guts, to think about including on this panel of his, some of the great many highly reputable and distinguished scientists who are sceptical of the theory on human caused climate change and perhaps he may like to include ordinary citizens of Manchester as well.

After all, they will be the ones who will be most directly affected, with all the extra taxes, inconveniences and hardships that no doubt will be forced upon them and all in the name of climate change.

Mention is made by Mr Burnham of “creating carbon neutrality” and “a low carbon economy”.

By carbon, I assume he means carbon dioxide (C02), which is a harmless plant food essential for all life on the planet, even his!

But for propaganda spiel, he chooses instead to use the word carbon and is at pains to emphasise the word, as carbon sounds all black dirty and evil.

Like some latter-day king Canute believing he has the power to halt climate change, Mr Burnham claims that he wants to debate whether we are doing enough on climate change.

But in order to silence debate, those of us who question the claims made by Mr Burnham and all the other cultural Marxists that human-released C02 is causing climate change are automatically labelled as heretics and “climate change deniers”.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike the above, we keep an open mind on climate change.

I know for a fact that climate change is natural, has been going on since the Earth was formed and there is a wealth of scientific evidence to prove this. So there is no good reason at all to suppose that this natural trend will not continue, regardless of what we humans do.

So, in conclusion, I would like to ask Mr Burnham what empirical, independently peer-reviewed scientific evidence he has to support his hypothesis that human released C02 is causing climate change?

Oh, and by the way, Mr Burnham, computer models are not empirical scientific evidence!

Stuart A Chapman

Ireland