Editor,

I read the recent letters by David Powell and Ed Hickey denying human-caused climate change. Why this is an important debate to have in a small, semi-rural community newspaper’s opinion page? I’m not sure.

One thing I appreciate about their arguments is they try to appeal to science. This is better than appealing to a God who is in ultimate control, which proves nothing.

Unfortunately, Hickey and Powell use the same methods: “Arrogant, intolerant liberals” are accused of using … then pointing to one or two micro studies that can be interpreted in a way that proves their overall point.

Hickey told us to Google “Kyoto University/UC San Diego Study.” I did. The 21st result is from a private individual who links to a press release from Kyoto University which states, “It is likely that temperatures in the Arctic will continue to rise due to anthropogenic global warming.” So, that’s weird.

Hickey also quotes from the conservative American Liberty. On that site I explored article after article of anti-liberal babble — hardly an objective source of information. Powell brings up Judith Curry, an outlier climate scientist who merely claims that “we don’t know (the dominant cause of climate change.)”

The point is anybody can point to a certain study or set of data and say, “Aha! See, I told you!” But where human-caused climate change adherents have the advantage is with the enormous weight of evidence tipped in their favor, compared to the scattered scientific dissenters.

When I Googled “global cooling” as Powell suggested, I came across a spattering of information, much of it from obscure websites. I don’t find the unanimous yelling-from-the-rooftops message from climate scientists as I do when I Google “global warming.”

Is it possible that humans are not the primary cause of climate change? Yes. Is it possible that climate science is tainted by politics and money? Yes. Nevertheless, the evidence is so overwhelmingly in favor of a human-based climate change that, until the evidence changes, it’s foolish to think otherwise.

David Coleman

Oak Harbor