No Definitive Answer

On Global Warming

To the Editor:

There was a very strong and solemn statement made in the editorial column of last week’s Bee: “Only those on the extreme margins of the scientific discourse on this issue still believe that humankind has nothing to do with global warming and the threats, known and unknown, it poses for our future.” I believe the jury is still out on this matter and despite this pundit’s salient prose, I remain unconvinced of the “Inconvenient Truth” premise.

I am not alone in resisting acceptance of the ideas of a segment of the scientific community. There were 19,000 scientists who signed a petition saying that global warming probably is natural and not a crisis. These scientists urged the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Their petition stated that there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.

I do not think there is a definitive answer yet to the global warming issue and I, as many others, am struggling to keep an open mind. Describing 19,000 scientists as “those on the extreme margins of the scientific discourse on this issue” is not helping. The readers can find more information on the aforementioned petition on the website of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, www.oism.org.

George Caracciolo

Schoolhouse Hill Road, Newtown                                  April 11, 2008