Uncertainties of global warming
Re “Climate change: Just deal with it?” March 26
The Times misses much of the point. Yes, humans can take some steps to mitigate the effects of climate change on our own species, but we can do little to help other species and their habitats adapt. To an increasing degree, invasive species will take root, fires will burn, subtle changes will overtake environments across the globe, and all manner of species will be pushed out of their native habitats -- often with nowhere else to go. If we give up on the fight against climate change, we abdicate our ethical responsibility to species other than our own.
Ginette Chapman
Oakland
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The total conceit of the global warming hysterics is evidenced by their rejection of an “adaptation” solution because the effects of global warming may be “unpredictable.” How utterly disingenuous. The entire climate environment has been “unpredictable” for countless millions of years. The collapse of an ice shelf that’s been there for -- gosh -- all of 1,500 whole years? What is that, one ten-millionth of this planet’s history?
Kip Dellinger
West Los Angeles
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I am dismayed by how often newspaper articles about the potential effects of greenhouse gas emissions focus only on the effects of rising temperatures. There is growing consensus within the scientific community that increasing carbon dioxide levels will lead to acidification in the ocean, inhibiting the ability of small animals such as coral, mollusks and some forms of plankton to form their shells. These creatures are at the bottom of the oceanic food chain. If they disappear, the oceanic food chain collapses.
How will we deal with that?
James Friedson
Altadena
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Roger Pielke Jr. and the so-called climate realists think we can adapt to human-driven climate change. They say that it is too expensive to make the necessary changes and that we do not have the global political will to act.
This is not a real option because climate change will continue to get worse if we do not act. Although the exact consequences of global warming beyond three degrees are uncertain, it is clear that the level of climate instability will be way beyond what we can adapt to. Short term, we can adapt; long term, we must change or join the dinosaurs in extinction.
John D. Kelley
Santa Barbara
