Contrary to column, human-influenced climate change has been long-established

James Ebisch’s guest commentary on climate change (CFP, March 7, 2019) is rife with misinformation. Given the lack of climate understanding he demonstrates in his commentary, his tone is particularly unfortunate, detracting from his message and making him look foolish in the process. What Ebisch, a geologist, and president of Wyoming Mines, wants readers to believe is that climate change is a natural phenomenon not influenced by human activities. His are a repetition of debunked arguments employed by climate change deniers undeterred by science, many funded by the fossil fuel industry.

Ebisch wants readers to believe that the scientific consensus on human-caused (anthropogenic) climate is a hoax perpetrated by a doctrinaire public education system, and “semi-literate entertainers.” In fact, ever since the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius proposed the connection between greenhouse gases and global warming in 1896, scientific research on climate change has rapidly advanced our understanding of the myriad factors influencing climate and concluded with near certainty that the primary driver is the CO2 we’ve been emitting since the Industrial Revolution kicked into gear around 1760, with coal as its engine.

Research on climate change has been led by an international body of the world’s most accomplished climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

It’s been 12 years since that prize was awarded and our efforts to address climate change have been woefully inadequate. The Fourth National Climate Assessment produced by 13 U.S. federal agencies and released in November 2018 warns that the Earth’s climate is changing faster and with more dire consequences that at any time in the history of modern civilization. The report states unequivocally, “Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account for the observed warming over the last century; there are no credible alternative human or natural explanations supported by the observational evidence.”

Despite what Ebisch would have us believe, humans are responsible for what’s happening to our climate. We must take responsibility and we must act now to avoid catastrophic impacts on our water resources, air quality, natural ecosystems, agriculture and on human life itself.

Richard Badalamente

Richland