Climate change is more than just politics

I’m writing today in regards to a story I recently saw in The Mountain Xpress [“Buncombe Commissioners Set Bar High for Carbon Reductions,” Dec. 17] and felt it necessary to comment on a reported statement from Mr. [Mike] Fryar.

[Xpress reporter Jake Frankel writes:] “Fryar blasted the move as ‘politics,’ questioning whether there really is any scientific consensus on global warming.”

Mr. Fryar, there is most assuredly consensus on climate change (the preferred nomenclature of most scientists).

Both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, two of the leading scientific organizations in our country, agree that there is ongoing, man-made climate change. We trust NASA to take us to the moon and Mars but we won’t trust them here?

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the pre-eminent scientific organization in the U.S., has also reached consensus regarding this matter.

Do you listen to your dentist when you have problems with your teeth? Or do you listen to your neighbor? When you need surgery, do you go to a surgeon? Or do you let the waiter at your favorite diner do the job?

We need to stop listening to propaganda from TV talking heads, bloggers and the like, and start listening to the professionals. I hope you take the time to look at the evidence I’ve provided from three amazing sources. I am an unaffiliated voter and I can assure you this has nothing to do with politics.

— Sean McNeal

Asheville

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9 thoughts on “Climate change is more than just politics

  1. bkepley

    of course there are the other professionals, just as educated but not so fashionable (or well-funded) who claim we are already past the end of an inter-glacial period and the natural orbit and wobble means things are bound to get much colder instead of warmer in which case Asheville’s meager efforts might actually speed up the environmental collapse by a nano-second rather than slow it down by a nano-second. But where’s the fun for a progressive in that?

  2. travelah

    When did trusting government and it’s grant indebted “employees” in academia become a cherished value among otherwise distrustful progressives? Did government become “honest joe” overnight?

  3. boatrocker

    to travelah’s post: No silly, it’s not about a sudden influx in trust of any governmental agency- nobody has had that since Watergate and the Pentagon Papers anyway.

    It is irrefutable documented evidence of man-made change to our climate. But keep believing that scientists are some sort of liberal elite or whatever the anti-education populists call it these days.

    Those satellite pictures of shrinking icecaps, rainforest de-forestation and China’s smog are probably just photo shopped anyway.

  4. bsummers

    Yes, don’t you know that the only “honest” opinions come from industry-indebted employees named Joe?

    • travelah

      Great, so you place your trust in the uber-bureaucracy of the federal government. Good to know

    • bsummers

      “Great, so you place your trust in the uber-bureaucracy of the federal government.”

      Your ability to misrepresent others comments hasn’t diminished, has it Trav? My point is that when 99% of the scientists (“govt. indebted” and not) say that climate change caused by human activity is real, and the only ones who disagree are the ones funded by the industry who stand to lose financially… I’ll believe the 99%, NOT the bureaucracy.

  5. bkepley

    That figure of 99% is a fraud if you would have the guts to look into the methodology at which it was arrived at. It’s as true as “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor”.

  6. travelah

    First, there are not 99% who agree with the assertion you are implying, that global warming is predominantly caused by human activity. I think the number is 100% that would agree that there is “some” impact that humans have had on global climate.

    In ten years, the alarmists will look like fools.

  7. Judy Sawyer

    “Both NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, two of the leading scientific organizations in our country, agree that there is ongoing, man-made climate change.”

    I decided to spend three minutes researching this. I found out that 50 former NASA astronauts, engineers and scientists wrote a letter stating, in part: “We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.”

    That’s in three minutes.

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