KEY POINTS:
The protestations of climate change deniers are little more than silly bluster in the face of the solid scientific evidence that disaster lies ahead if we do not rein in greenhouse gas emissions.
The article from Canadian Tom Harris, spokesman for the mysteriously funded National Resources Stewardship Project linked to fossil-fuel energy lobbies, was just the latest example of writers who offer scorn by way of reply to science.
Not only is the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change extremely solid, as demonstrated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, but it is growing even more sombre as new developments occur.
The extent of the melting of last year's summer sea ice in the Arctic, for example, has been greater than predicted by models.
Climate scientist James Hansen, director of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has in recent weeks written to the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor to call for the phasing out of coal use except where carbon dioxide (CO2) is captured and sequestered.
In explaining the grounds for his appeal, he cites the inertia of the climate system which is delaying the effect of gases already in the air and disguising the urgency which would otherwise be apparent.
This inertia, combined with amplifying feedbacks such as the melting of ice and snow which increase the absorption of sunlight, creates the danger of tipping points where large, relatively rapid climate change and impacts can occur with grave risk for humanity and for many of our fellow species.
These are serious prospects, pointed to by a very large number of scientists working in the area. They do not mean we are doomed already. Hansen says there is no cause for despair and believes the actions needed to avert the tipping points are feasible.
The big question is whether the necessary actions will be taken or not. This is the point at which the issue becomes political. Only political action will achieve what is needed.
It is the achievability of substantial reductions in CO2 emissions which makes the publicity for climate change deniers so alarming. It is difficult to grasp that changes have to be made to how the economy is run.
It is difficult to believe in the midst of plenty that the energy that powers our society has to be replaced by new sources, perhaps at some cost. The desire to think things surely can't be as bad as the science suggests is understandable. The media's readiness to publish articles which scoff at the science as a load of alarmist nonsense buttresses our reluctance to face the facts, and a few more years may be frittered away before the reality becomes inescapable.
Now is the time for committing to the necessary actions, not waiting until the inertia of the climate system no longer masks the urgency of what is already happening.
There is nothing in any of the deniers' articles the Herald has published which has not already been examined by climate scientists who, after all, would be as pleased as anyone to discover they are mistaken. But they have to report matters as they find them.
We would be very unwise to take comfort from the deniers, however much media exposure their statements are given.
* Bryan Walker is a retired teacher from Hamilton.
