This sends out a huge Amen! for Judy Wolniakowski’s “two sided” guest opinion regarding the intemperate responses to Cliff Harris’ Monday July 29 column regarding climate change. My wife and I love Cliff’s columns, whether or not we agree with some of his views.

Sadly, many have adopted as religious tenets concerns over “global warming,” “climate change” and “mankind is poisoning the world (by whatever it does).” As with most religions, those who disagree with the “religious” fundamentals of, in this case “global warming,” are anathematized. The numerous angry letters about Cliff’s column reflect that pattern. Congratulations to The Press for publishing views with which some may disagree.

Science used to be a principled experimental process by which hypotheses were proposed, tested, modified and ultimately accepted or rejected. Sometimes settled scientific doctrines are later found to be foolish. For example, in the healing profession: Bloodletting in the 18th and 19th centuries and radium treatments around the turn of the 20th. I suspect some of today’s “accepted” scientific views will in the future be considered just as silly.

For the past 30 years or so, substantial government monies (from the United States, other “developed” countries and the United Nations) have been made available to support the view that human-caused climate change exists, that it is bad and will destroy the world if we don’t have a carbon tax (or other government action) to stop CO2 from killing us. (I note that CO2 is a natural product of respiration and photosynthesis; and, further, that prior to the Supreme Court’s agreeing with the EPA that under the peculiar terms of a law passed by Congress, the EPA could legally consider CO2 a “pollutant,” and, thus, be permitted to regulate it, no one ever considered CO2 to be bad, or any sort of problem.)

Consider where the money for these studies comes from (the government), the fact that little or no money is made available to support research that might dispute or undercut this “settled science,” the fact that “global warming” opponents are anathematized rather than civilly disputed with scientific research, and the fact that research data (e.g., lack of increased temperatures for the past dozen years or so) is suppressed whenever it might undercut the “settled science” of “global warming,” among other facts, and one cannot but help to conclude that this whole area of discussion has become a religious tenet of faith that results in intemperate “tar-and-feather” responses whenever someone has the audacity to disagree (no matter how scientifically supported or unsupported that disagreement might be).

In sum, kudos to Ms. Wolniakowski for her even-handed column and to The Press for publishing it!

TOM STUBER

Hauser