Dear editor,
Re: Just the (climate change) facts, ma’am Jan. 24 letter to the editor:
Letter writer David Ostler rejects Jane Davies’ criticism of some climate scientists’ support for alarming predictions of catastrophic, human-caused global warming due to higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
CO2 is not just critical to plant life, it is critical to all vegetative life in the sea and on land and hence to all animal life. And vegetation produces, through photosynthesis, the oxygen which all animal life requires.
I agree that CO2 can kill you in the same way water (H2O) can, by asphyxiation, but we do not breathe pure CO2 or pure H2O though most of us enjoy a steam bath and the fragrance of flowers.
The essence of science is reasoned, respectful debate which is difficult when qualified, reasonable dissenters are dismissed as “deniers” with “demented ideas” who need to “read a book about how science works” when many of them are senior contributors to the IPCC and authors of scientific works.
Mr. Ostler should perhaps take note of Albert Einstein’s reply when told of a book titled, 100 Authors against Einstein. He said, “Why one hundred? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”
Dick Robertson
Comox
