Letters to the editor for Friday, June 17, 2016

Focus on future not past of climate change

In “Global warming needs action, not innuendo,” by Chas Macquarie on June 8, Macquarie states that “the percentage of climate scientists who think the current warming trend is primarily human caused is in the high 90s.”

He could have said 100 percent since all competent climate scientists know that humans contribute to climate change through land-use change, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

But that is not the real issue. The key question is, do the relevant scientists agree that our greenhouse gas emissions will cause dangerous climate change? Only if it will be dangerous should this be a public policy concern. No one knows the answer to this question since such a poll has never been conducted.

Meanwhile, aid agencies are unable to adequately support vulnerable people being affected by climate change today. Because of overconfidence of groups like the Citizens’ Climate Lobby about our ability to predict and even control future climate, 94 percent of the more than $1 billion/day spent worldwide on climate finance is dedicated to mitigation, trying to affect events that may, or may not, someday happen.

One reason for this imbalance is that mitigation projects are far more profitable for large corporations than are the smaller scale boots-on-the-ground strategies needed to help populations adapt.

We may never properly understand the causes of climate change or its future trajectory, but we know that people need help now. Let’s focus our efforts there.

Tom Harris

Executive director of International Climate Science Coalition