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LETTER: Al Gore isn’t the enemy

Evidence shows Earth in unusual climate cycle
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Is it OK if I say that my first reaction to Charles Willis flogging the dead horse of attacking Al Gore was to roll my eyes upwards and use the old phrase, “Lord love a duck?”

Al Gore has long been the boogeyman for the far-right, conspiracy theorist, whose Inconvenient Truth has proved very inconvenient to climate deniers. Even if his knowledge of Al Gore’s life is spot on — and that is not a certainty — then what does that have to do with Gore’s ability to read and understand the proven facts that actual climate scientists have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Facts that are subject to peer review to test their validity. Trying to discredit the facts of climate change based on a hatred of Al Gore seems truly bizarre to me.

Of course, the earth has gone through cycles of hot and cold. But we only know that because of scientists who have studied the natural world around us. Apparently, Mr. Willis is rather selective in deciding which scientific facts he wants to believe. Science is not a popularity contest, you cannot simply pick and choose which ones you’ll accept and which you won’t.

All the findings of climate scientists have confirmed that we are not in a normal climate cycle. Ten thousand years ago, we were in the Age of Ice, now we are in the Age of Fire. We are also in the Age of the Fifth Great Extinction, all part and parcel of fossil fuel and human activities accelerating climate change at a pace that has never happened in the world before.

At the end of the last ice age, there were probably no more then a couple hundred thousand humans on the planet. Now there are nearly eight billion. The earth couldn’t be in more peril than if another dinosaur-killing asteroid was heading back our way.

The carbon tax hated by the fossil fuel shills and paid hacks is only one step towards a more sustainable future for humanity and all living things on this planet. It is not going to break the bank as Mr. Willis claims, but it and other proactive steps that must be taken just might save ourselves for our own extinction, but we must overcome the selfishness and short-sighted thinking exhibited by too many in society.

Robert T. Rock

Mission City