Climate change


In response to the letter of Nancy Smeets-Tkachenko on Dec. 13, “Climate change is nothing new,” your claim that “In the 1970s scientists predicted a global ice age with global cooling” is often used by climate-change deniers to discredit scientists who raise the alarm over global warming.

According to an article published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (“The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus,” Peterson, Thomas, et. al., February 2008), “There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.”

You also state that “It is an undeniable fact that even if the whole world banned straws and stopped using fossil fuels this second, the effect would not be measureable (sic).” Really? Says who?

I am reminded of the famous quote by Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Scott E. Robertson
Oak Park