The Global Warming Debate

Our Aug. 13 report on the global-warming “denial machine” elicited more than 250 passionate responses. One reader declared the article “a public-service piece,” adding, “It doesn’t take a great intellect to figure out that humans are having a negative impact on our environment.” But many skeptics begged to differ. “Climate change is a fact,” said one. “Man-made global warming is a religion fueled by misleading statements.” One reader said the debate was irrelevant, asking, “Shouldn’t we be good stewards of our planet anyway?”

I was extremely pleased to read Sharon Begley’s detailed and highly accurate article on the climate-change deniers (“The Truth About Denial”). I first published on climate disruption in 1968 and, like my scientific colleagues, have grown increasingly concerned about it ever since. The success of the deniers has been appalling and, sadly, they have succeeded in delaying needed action for a decade or more. I know dozens of the leading climate scientists personally and have followed and taught about the increasingly clear and ominous responses of Earth’s flora and fauna to global heating, which is being thoroughly documented by biologists. The prospects for our descendants are grim indeed. There is never certainty in science, but the deniers have it exactly backward. The vast majority of knowledgeable scientists worry that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclusions are too conservative, and the consequences for humanity are likely to be more severe than projected. NEWSWEEK has done a great service for humanity in exposing what scientists have long known —that the deniers are well-paid charlatans. Thank you.

Paul R. Ehrlich

BING Professor of Population Studies

Stanford University

Stanford, Calif.