Letter: Emotions fuel climate debate • Current Publishing - Current in Carmel
Letter: Emotions fuel climate debate • Current Publishing
Editor,
My dog is bigger than your dog! Even though my childhood days ended over 60 years ago, I can still recall the yelling matches with my friends over the silliest of topics from who was the fastest runner or could spit the farthest or, yes, even who’s dog was the biggest.
These arguments naturally led to spirited challenges to prove who was right or wrong. Often at the height of the contest, one party would complain that the other side was cheating, and the verbal battles would begin anew. One would’ve hoped that once we left the playgrounds behind and joined the adult ranks, that these less-than-productive spitting contests would subside. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.
The other day, I heard a green energy activist refer to people with different thoughts on the climate emergency as flat-earthers. On a lark, I did a Google search to see which famous person in history is credited with proving our planet wasn’t flat. I was astounded to learn that it’s not settled science. Some 2,500 years later, many historians, astronomers, mathematicians, etc., are still arguing who was first to theorize that the earth was round.
Is it any wonder, then, that a fairly current topic as complex and unpredictable as the weather is one that all God’s creatures – from Punxsutawney Phil to world-renowned scientists – have weighed in on the debate? The main thing boiling in our atmosphere are the emotions feeding both sides.
As battlegrounds multiply, our government is spending enormous dollars we don’t have and mandating actions that encroach on every facet of our lives. Before Carmel Mayor Sue Finkam and the Carmel City Council devote future expenditures or consider legislation aimed at climate issues, we the people need to be consulted.
Rick Place, Carmel
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.