Richard Greene and global warming

Richard Greene stated in his Sunday column (“Global warming skeptics expose EPA’s activism”) that the science relating to global warming is not settled.

This makes perfect sense if there is disagreement among the experts in the field, but it doesn’t help those of us who look to the experts for answers. If respected expert Patrick Moore has strong doubts about the causes and effects of global warming, where does that leave us?

Some aspects of the science are known because they are measured. For instance, some melting of the major glaciers has occurred, either from human or natural causes, and the sea level has slowly risen a few inches.

Ocean acidification is occurring as the waters absorb the atmospheric carbon dioxide, and this may not bode well for some species that call the ocean home.

A book by paleoclimatologist Curt Stager, Deep Future, is a comprehensive and reasonable approach to global warming. For him, the increase in atmospheric CO2 is the culprit,

That’s just one expert’s opinion, but it leaves me to believe that it’s good that the world is trying to cut back on burning fossil fuels.

— Jim Hahn, Fort Worth

Greene quotes Patrick Moore as a climate expert and Greenpeace co-founder. Moore is neither. He was a director of Greenpeace but left in 1991 to become a consultant/lobbyist. He is now paid to support the position that climate change is good or isn’t happening at all.

As an example of Moore’s scientific credibility, after the World Health Organization released a study concluding that the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide is “probably carcinogenic,” Moore told a French filmmaker that Roundup is safe to drink. Upon being offered some, Moore refused, ending the interview with, “I’m not an idiot.” That interview video is available online.

Greene stated that there is an “ongoing and seemingly ageless argument among scientists” regarding climate change and that “the science is not conclusive.”

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Almost all climate scientists agree, as do the vast majority of peer-reviewed scientific articles published since 1990. No scientific body of national or international standing denies that climate change is real and human activity is the prime contributor.

And Greene is a former regional EPA administrator?

— Larry Carlton, Bedford

Greene cites a Greenpeace guy who gave up on the organization’s efforts to stop Japan’s illegal killing of whales in the North Pacific as proof that climate change is not real. How does he connect Greenpeace and climate change?

Also, he suggests that because most people don’t care about climate change, it must not be real. What proof is that?

Due to the increasing amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide caused by people’s fuel consumption, the majority of world scientists agree that global warming is real.

Over the past 400,000 years, the carbon dioxide level has varied between 80 and 180 parts per million (per scientific studies) and is now near 270 ppm, or 50 percent higher than at any time in the last 400,000 years.

Over the last 160 years (recorded history of temperature levels), nine of the 10 hottest years have been in the past decade.

Thus, Al Gore was right when he said that Earth is getting warmer due to increasing CO2 and that man is the reason.

— Steve Hadley, Benbrook

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 5:56 PM with the headline "Richard Greene and global warming."