I’m 85 years old. My body may feel like a 100, but my mind’s as sharp as 30 years ago. Been around the block a few times. Seen a lot–Great Depression, wars, the death of my only son, a great grandson with cancer. I’m a conservative at heart and been a Republican most of my life. I’m a straight shooter when I speak, just as I was a straight shooter on my college rifle team.
I say all this because when people mislead or speak mistruths in the local newspapers, and when my grandchildren and great grandchildren’s futures are in peril, this here octogenarian is gonna call folks out on it.
Here’s my gripe, good readers: The naysayers of global warming are putting my family and your families’ futures at risk. Lately there’s been a lot of back and forth letters on climate change. So what’s the honest to goodness truth? Climate change is fact, not fiction or theory, and certainly not a “religion” as Hamilton’s Peter MacLachlan peculiarly wrote in his letter recently.
Deniers of human caused climate change are immune to the evidence and always will be, so we common sense folks everywhere need to take heed, ignore the usual naysayer suspects, and listen to the near 100% (97%!) of climate science experts. And coming from a military family and proud of it, we need to trust our courageous and knowledgeable military leaders who rely on the facts, whether it’s on the battlefield or in the realm of global warming. Our military, the strongest and smartest in the world, know the national security threat that climate change poses, and how it’ll gut the US and world economy if left unchecked. Already, in 2012, climate disasters cost the US $110 billion. We can’t afford inaction or obstruction by climate denying ideologues who rule the local newspaper roost.
We need to call out discredited climate skeptics like Edwin X Berry who Peter MacLachlan quotes in his denial of global warming’s existence. For further proof of Berry’s extreme views, he’s also a birther–doesn’t believe our President was born in the US. I’m not a big Obama fan, but I’m sane enough, and informed enough, to know he was born in Hawaii and is a legitimate US citizen and, for better or for worse, our President.
Gene Williams claims there’s literally “thousands” of climate scientist skeptics, and says climate change is a “manufactured threat” to keep us dependent on Saudi oil. Well first, there’s only a few hundred or a few thousand climatologists in the whole world, depending on how you define “climatologist.” So, if there’s 97% consensus agreement that humans are the main greenhouse gas drivers behind climate change, then Gene’s math of “thousands” is wrong at best. Savvy readers can crunch the numbers. And, by the way, Gene’s not allowed to count climate change deniers who live on Mars either.
Gene Williams also doesn’t realize that our great country is becoming more energy independent every day, and should be off Middle East oil in the next decade. Hasn’t he heard of the oil boom here? Combating climate change won’t make us more dependent on Saudi oil as Gene insists. On the contrary, American innovators will develop amazing new green technologies that we can sell to the rest of the world and handsomely profit from. We’ll break our addiction to foreign oil, while using plentiful natural gas as a bridge fuel to a sustainable, energy independent future.
And then there’s Jerry Haslip’s letters… Enough said. Every time he writes, the hole keeps getting deeper. Ease up on the shovel, Jerry!
Listen folks, I may be suffering the same nasty effects of early global warming like the rest of us Bitterrooters this sweltering summer. I’m hot, tired of breathing smoky air, my yard’s full of dead brown patches, the creek’s run dry, and I’m swollen and sore from abundant wasp stings. But heck, I’m 85. I’m more worried about my family’s future. Aren’t you?
Doris Adam
Hamilton