Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

letter to the editor:

Seeking civil debate on climate

Recently, there was an interesting guest opinion by John Christy, “Settled science isn’t necessarily so.” It is rare to see any informed criticism of global climate change. It was nice to see that there really is an “other side” of this issue.

However, Christy’s column was followed by two letters to the editor that attacked his positions. In fact, one of the letters, “Columnist’s head is in the clouds,” said that he was disappointed that the Sun bothered to publish the column. The writer did not present a counterargument to Christy’s position, just a series of quotes from various scientists who obviously disagree with Christy. No wonder we don’t hear the other side very often! Who wants to subject themselves to that abuse?

I was not familiar with Christy, so I looked him up on the Internet and found that he is a climate scientist with very impressive credentials. He is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science. He was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal and the American Meteorological Society’s Special Award, so Christy has certainly earned the right to voice an opinion on climate change.

Christy is critical of scientists who make catastrophic predictions of huge increases in global temperatures and tremendous rises in sea levels, many of which have already been proved false.

It is too bad that this issue has become so politicized that civil debate has become almost impossible.

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