Doubting the doomsday doubters
JEFF JACOBY seems to think it's unfair that scientists who doubt the effects of global warming are not getting equal time for their opinions ("Doubting doomsday," April 15, op-ed). But science is not about fairness, it is about having evidence for your ideas.
The evidence for the consequences of global warming do not come from the computer simulations he so blithely dismisses, but from the geologic record. At the current rate of increase, the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in a couple of generations will be equal to the levels at the end of the Permian Period 250 million years ago. The geologic records speaks quite eloquently about the consequences to life as we know it under those conditions -- at the end of Permian, 90 percent of the life forms on Earth went extinct.
Stellar scientific credentials are wonderful, but in the final analysis, it's the evidence that holds sway. If the global warming doubters have evidence about the positive effects of anthropomorphic climate change, let them publish it in peer-reviewed journals. It ought to be more than just an opinion essay in a popular news weekly.
ANDREW KOENIGSBERG
Westborough
IN JEFF JACOBY'S column "Doubting Doomsday," he holds up MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen as an example of a respected global warming skeptic. Jacoby claims that courageous scientists like Lindzen are being smeared unfairly, while global warming alarmists get all the research grants and TV time. If Jacoby wasn't so eager to find a martyr for climate change skeptics he could have learned through some simple research that Lindzen is anything but saintly. According to the website Sourcewatch and Harper's magazine, Lindzen has given speeches underwritten by OPEC, and his 1991 trip to testify before the Senate was paid for by Western Fuels. In the past, he has charged oil companies $2,500 a day for his consulting services.
If this is the most objective scientist that layman skeptics like Jacoby can find to advance their cause, then perhaps the debate over climate change really is over.
DAVID GOLANN
Auburndale 