In response to Facundo Tangona’s article, which ran in the May 10 issue of the Daily Forty-Niner, titled “Global warming impacts all aspects of life – even allergies”: Are there no scientists on campus who care to (dare to?) refute the unsubstantiated claims contained therein?
“Polar ice caps are melting,” and “water levels rise and land begins to disappear” would anyone care to quantify these (predicted) effects for us? Or reference the data upon which such claims are based?
In 1978 Lowell Ponte (among others) also warned about catastrophic climate change: “We simply cannot afford to gamble … by ignoring it. We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who say we are merely entering a period of climatic instability are acting irresponsibly. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonably ignored.”
The language sounds familiar, warning of impending catastrophic changes in climate. However, it was about global cooling, fear of a new ice age that he, and others, wrote about at the time. Then, as now, we were told that climate change would lead to severe consequences.
Check back in 20 years and see if the fear of global warming has fallen on the ash heap of science along with the search for extra-terrestrial life, eugenics, phrenology and the catastrophe of Y2K.
– Andrea Mays Griffith, lecturer, CSULB department of economics
