To the Editor:
Re “A Lesson on Warming” (editorial, July 10):
One can understand the sense of urgency expressed by the Group of 8 nations in setting a goal of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit as the absolute maximum that the Earth should be allowed to warm.
This does not sound like much, but it is much greater than it seems, as it refers to average temperatures for the planet. Temperatures will climb more and faster in some parts of the world than in others, for example at higher latitudes and altitudes.
The G-8 goal represents a warming almost twice the amount we have already caused, which is now melting ice all over the world; causing more intense heat waves, droughts, flooding and storms; and threatening the survival of coral reefs and 40 million acres of conifer forests in western states and Canada.
Global temperatures have increased on average only about 10 degrees Fahrenheit since the end of the last ice age, 18,000 years ago, when where I am sitting in Boston was still under a layer of ice one mile thick.
The House and President Obama have committed the United States to significant reductions in greenhouse gases. But Congress and the president will have to do much, much more if they are to lead the world away from causing a catastrophic warming of our planet. If they do not, who will?
Eric Chivian
Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment
Harvard Medical School
Boston, July 13, 2009
Note from KBJ: An intellectually honest person would identify the benefits of global warming as well as the costs, leaving it to his or her audience to decide which predominate. There is no mention of benefits in this letter. Here is one obvious benefit. There are many others.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 