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• Monday, June 30, 2008 09:19 AM

  @Harrer

  >"First, it is easy to dispute that there is a scientifc community consensus about the cause of global warming."

  Sure it is easy to say it, but it's simply dead, flat wrong. All major U.S. scientific organizations, led by the National Academies, the non-profit non-governbment set up by Lincoln to give unbiased, non-political advice to the Congress and people of the U.S. agree that humans are altering climate in significant ways with potentially catastropic consequences. Lindzen, quoted by Harrer, was one of 14 experts on an NAS panel on the subject. He was a minority of one. That does not make him wrong, and there are likely several hundred specialists in the field who share his misgivings. But on the other side are many tens of thousands of specialists in the field - the membership of the American Geophysical Union, which also says climate change is a concern, is 44,000.

  To read the current NAS position on human-caused climate change, go to

  http://dels.nas.edu/basc/climate-change/

  Here's the bottom line from the current report:

  "The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to begin taking steps to prepare for climate change and to slow it. Human actions over the next few decades will have a major influence on the magnitude and rate of future warming. Large, disruptive changes are much more likely if greenhouse gases are allowed to continue building up in the atmosphere at their present rate. However, reducing greenhouse

  gas emissions will require strong national and international commitments, technological innovation, and human willpower.

  If Dr. Harrer, disagrees, fine. But if he denies that his views are those of a small minority of scientists, he's a liar.

  —stet Read stet's other letters
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