Sen. James Inhofe and some other politicians are claiming climate change is a hoax. In doing so they exhibit a striking disconnect with the vast majority of climate scientists who have devoted their lives to the subject.

For decades now those scientists have been warning us of damaging environmental consequences due to unrestrained emissions of greenhouse gases. Prestigious scientific bodies like the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Physical Society and the National Academy of Sciences have issued public statements to this effect. On the other hand, how many established scientific bodies have issued statements backing up Sen. Inhofe’s side of this “controversy?” Zero.

But the indefatigable Sen. Inhofe, who has no scientific background whatsoever, seems unfazed. Rather than deferring to the people who actually know something about the subject, he accuses them of perpetrating a vast hoax. Think of just how preposterous this is. Are we to believe that thousands of climate scientists have suddenly decided to abandon their professional integrity and throw their careers into jeopardy by engaging in an enormous conspiracy of lies designed to sabotage the American economy?

It is shameful to treat a scientific topic as a political football. Mother Nature neither knows nor cares about politics. The Arctic Sea ice will not stop shrinking, the glaciers will not stop receding, the ocean levels will not stop rising, and the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will not stop increasing merely because it is inconvenient to someone’s political philosophy.

It would be the height of irresponsibility to gamble with the fate of the planet by disregarding the vast majority of climate scientists. If we allow this to happen, the future generations who are left to deal with the consequences of our folly will rightly hold us in contempt.

James J. Amato

Duluth

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