Goncalves and UKIP clash over climate change at St Andrews

There was a strong "difference of opinion" between UKIP and Ed Goncalves at the St Andrews Church hustings last night.

UKIP's candidate quoted some scientists who do not regard the threat of climate change as serious saying "The alarmist 2008 Climate Change Act was based on the five degrees warming "Hockey Stick" sham … go out there, enjoy your driving and overseas holiday".

This led to a direct clash with the Liberal Democrat candidate, Ed Goncalves, who said that the vast majority of scientists studying climate change believed that global temperatures were rising and that this was the result of man's activity. "If 97% of scientists told me it was unsafe to get on board a plane, I would not get on board that plane" he said.

Personal footnote

I don't claim to understand the scientific reports - but I do know what I have seen with own eyes. When I was in my twenties I went youth hostelling around Europe and walked on top of the Pasterze glacier in Austria. Thirty years later I took Glenda to see the same glacier only to find that the top of glacier was now hundreds of feet lower than it had been when I first visited it.

I believe there is a rise in global temperatures.