Quit denying climate change
Saturday, July 26, 2008 The Oregonian
David Reinhard is correct ("The climate-change debate heats up," July 24). There is not a consensus on global warming -- there is an overwhelming consensus. Every single scientific society states that global warming is happening, we are already feeling damage from the resultant climate change, and the burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of this warming.

The publication of Christopher Monckton's paper in an online newsletter of one of 39 units of the American Physical Society Forum on Physics and Society is hardly a break in scientific ranks.

The introduction to that paper states that Monckton is not a scientist but an economist. And his article was not peer-reviewed, for had it been, it would have never been published.

There were also a number of other nonsensical statements in Reinhard's essay. The role that carbon dioxide plays in the temperature regulation of the atmosphere was described over a century ago by Svante Arrhenius of Sweden.

The science of the people who are concerned about global warming has been repeatedly shown to be correct. In fact, there are far more scientists stating that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change understated the effects and speed of the warming than are stating that the report was overly alarmist.

RAYMOND HARVEY North Portland


Article doesn't hold up


After reading David Reinhard's July 24 opinion piece, I visited the Web site of the American Physical Society (APS Physics | APS Home), the apparent source of dissenting opinions regarding the scientific consensus about humanity's contribution to global warming.

This is what I found: "American Physical Society (APS) today reaffirmed its position on climate change issued last November. 'Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth's climate. The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring.'

" . . . APS is reaffirming its policy on global warming because an article at odds with the official APS position recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. This newsletter is not a scientific journal of the APS, and it is not peer reviewed.

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