Letter: Marsden column on climate change off the mark - Quad-City Times

Letter: Marsden column on climate change off the mark

I am writing in response to the op ed by Rachel Marsden on the May 8 editorial page. She relied on several fallacies in her reasoning.

First of all, she suggested that climate change is a hoax without offering any scientific evidence. She then went on to suggest that survey data of American’s current concerns can be used to support her first assumption. Those surveys are asking people to rank in order their most pressing concerns, so I don’t find it surprising that people list as primary concerns those items that are “in their face” like the economy, and put those at the end of the line that are more complex or seem off in the distance, like climate change.

I do, however, find it surprising that some people challenge the findings of science about some topics, but not others. As Neil deGrasse Tyson said, “Scientists have again landed a spacecraft on a proverbial dime on a planet 40 million miles away that rotates at 241 metres per second. Think I’m gonna trust them on this climate change stuff.”

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I also find it surprising that the editors of the paper lent credence to this half-baked article by publishing it. If you want some reliable sources on climate change science, I refer you to Dr. Katharine Hayhoe and Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent books, Saving Us: A Climate Scientists Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, and H is for Hope, respectively. Those are worth reading.

Lori McCollum

Rock Island