A Cloud of Doubt Over Climate Study

Re “Risk to State Dire in Climate Study,” (Aug. 17): So a climate study predicts dire consequences for California if something is not done about global warming soon. The co- director of Stanford’s Center for Environmental Science and Policy, Steve Schneider, weighed in, saying, “Are you going to wait 25 years to solve this, or are you going to act on the preponderance of evidence that we are accumulating?”

Schneider was also quoted in “Our Fragile Earth” (Discover, Oct. 1989), saying: “So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have.... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” One has to wonder exactly what kind of “evidence” everyone involved in the study is accumulating. One should, but given the lemming mentality that we mere nonscientific mortals display, one won’t.

Bruce Roland

Ojai