LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: GLOBAL WARMING ISSUE REQUIRES SOME PRUDENCE

To the editor:

Approaching scientific evidence with a political commitment that demands denial of the evidence often requires creativity and self-deception. This is the problem that faced Ken Aldrich in his recent letter challenging climate-change evidence. Mr. Aldrich would downplay or deny the implications suggested by the evidence.

Following his Internet search, Mr. Aldrich concluded that posted articles are generally old, predating the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Had he, however, searched the literature in current research journals, he would have found an abundance of more recently published evidence corroborating global warming.

Mr. Aldrich also discounted the 2,500 signatories of a statement of concern regarding climate change as being composed of economists and environmentalists. Unless Mr. Aldrich defines climatologists and atmospheric scientists as environmentalists and uses the term to define environmental scientists generally, he is mistaken. Most of the signatories of that statement were scientists with expertise in the process, causes and consequences of global climate change.

In an attempt apparently to confuse the issue, Mr. Aldrich referred to temperature patterns in different atmospheric layers and quoted Dr. Roy Spencer to support his position. In the same paragraph, however, Mr. Aldrich states that "data show a warming of the earth's surface." Of course, this is the critical issue since this is where we live. It is also where we find the natural ecosystems that provide our food and fiber and thus support our health and economic wealth.

While the general pattern of global warming at Earth's surface remains unchallenged, as the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change reported this year, regional differences in consequences vary. In the Midwest, for example, projections include water shortages, drained wetlands, increased fire frequency, warmer winters and a northward migration of both human disease and agricultural zones. There is, furthermore, abundant evidence that catastrophic regional weather patterns have increased over recent years costing human lives and billions of dollars globally, Climate models predicted this consequence.

It is difficult to read Mr. Alrdich's letter and draw from it the conclusion he draws: that global warming "is a scam." Curiously, even Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, no friend of the environment or environmentalists has acknowledged that the preponderance of evidence supports the conclusion that our planet is warming. What Governor Bush and Mr. Aldrich apparently refuse to acknowledge is that those nations most responsible for releasing greenhouse gases, a probable major contributor to this global problem, should do most to try to address it.

The issue is one of prudence: Should we risk doing nothing when such a stance might well lead to ecosystem disruption on a global scale, or should we take whatever steps we can to alleviate the problem? Most folks agree that rather than burying our heads in the sand and continuing business as usual, we should act. Fortunately, the other presidential candidate concurs with most voters.

ALAN R.P. JOURNET

Cape Girardeau