Reply to the Comment of Robert E.T. Ward by Robert M. Carter

I thank Robert Ward for writing to me on February 2nd this year to point out an error in my 2008 paper, and now for the further interest that he has shown in the substance of the paper by providing a detailed critique. In response to his letter, and after taking the time to check various details of the matter, on May 2nd I asked the editors of EA P journal to publish the following erratum: “ERRATUM. The paper by R.M. Carter, “Knock, knock: where is the evidence for dangerous human-caused global warming?”, was published in 2008 in volume 38 of this journal. The paper contained the following quotation regarding global warming: “unless we announce disasters, no one will listen”, which was attributed to Dr Houghton’s 1994 book “Global Warming: the Complete Briefing”. N o such quotation appears in Dr Houghton’s book, and I therefore withdraw the assertion that it does and apologize to Dr Houghton for my misunderstanding of the issue. The quotation that I had in mind to reflect Dr Houghton’s views, but failed to identify accurately, was published in the U.K. Sunday Telegraph on Sept. 10th, 1995 in an article entitled “Sir John Houghton: Me and My God”; it reads “If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster”.