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Fact check on climate change denial

Re: “PC’s going green for votes,” March 29, 2016

“Where is the fiscal responsibility?” April 27, 2016

Dear Editor,

I do not know why Patrick Brown has reversed his position on climate change, but one can hope his new stand is genuine. Perhaps the overwhelming evidence of the danger of imminent catastrophe precipitated a Damascan moment.

Equally, I do not know what the writer sought to achieve with his contemptible denigration of Suzuki and Gore – two giants of the fight against fossil fuel propaganda and obscurantism. Possibly he is a fan of the three elected representatives in Durham Region who also spread the mischief of denial and fought in Parliament to prevent action, in part from uninformed belief and the interests of their donor base and, in part, from pandering for the votes of the ignorant as exemplified by the writer.

The two letters claim that there is no evidence showing that this warming is man made. What would they say about some 3,000 peer reviewed papers in the past four years alone with more than 10,000 contributing authors that present evidence? How does he explain that the type of CO2 that is involved in the increase is produced only by the burning of fossil fuels? Contrast that with one paper by an obscure Russian who agrees with him on lack of warming (but not with the rest of his rant).

What would he say about the 195 national governments that recently agreed that the change is happening and is critical. Or the 80 National Science Academies that have endorsed the fact and the danger? Or every scientific institution in the world also expressing belief and concern? The Pentagon?

While one of the writers is happy that CO2 is breathed out of his nose every day (he also breathes it in), how does he feel about breathing in 40 per cent more than his grandfather – 40 per cent that is all produced by man. How does he feel about the dying off of phytoplankton due to ocean warming and acidification: phytoplankton that produces a large portion of the oxygen we breathe. He breathes more CO2 and less of that oxygen that the human race is dependent on.

I will not dwell on the egregious errors presented in every other claim of the incoherent rhetoric. Every point in it without exception is so wrong that it is, in its totality, almost sublime absurdity.

John Peate

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