LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Numbers do not add up on global warming

Posted

TO THE EDITOR:

I write in response to Tony Magliano’s piece entitled, “Global Warming: We’d better take it seriously,” (Aug. 1). He wrote: And of serious human caused threats to the natural world, none is more serious, or more urgent, than climate change – especially global warming.”

In support of this thesis, he cites a NASA report that 97 percent of climate scientists agree that global warming trends are “very likely” due to human activities.

This is akin to polling organized labor leaders and learning that 97 percent favor higher wages and improved benefits for their workers, or discovering that 97 percent of history professors support mandating more history courses as a graduation prerequisite.

The U.S. government grants some $9 billion a year for the study of man-made causes of climate change. Guess who gets this money? What do you think would happen to these grants if even a small minority of climate scientists concluded that climate change was “very likely” the result of natural causes, and mankind’s impact is miniscule or non-existent?

In the broader scientific community, there is increasing skepticism of the supposed threat posed by alleged man-made warming. One prominent scholar, Ian Giaever, a Nobel-winning researcher from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute resigned from the professional organization of physicists, the American Physical Society, because of its position that the evidence for scientific for man-made global warming was “incontrovertible.” His point: All scientific propositions are (and should be) subject to challenge and rebuttal. There are, as usual, two sides to this story. Perhaps Mr. Magliano should broaden his research parameters.

Paul Greene

Jamestown