Your Opinion: Climate change and our future

Dear Editor:

As silly as Jim Dyke's cartoons are, suggesting that a cold day debunks climate change, at least they started a public discussion on a topic that most scientists say is the greatest threat facing humanity.

Steve Sampson attempted to debunk climate change by listing successful celebrities who believe climate scientists. His logic: if these people believe climate scientists, the scientists must be wrong. To add to his credibility, Sampson referenced "a" scientist, Dr. Pierre Dutrieux, from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Robert Haslag responded with a comprehensive list of scientific organizations that have official statements supporting that climate change is real, man-made and deserves serious action. One organization he mentioned was BAS.

Sampson provided a perfect example of how "cherry picking" facts and using them out of context can be used to create doubt about climate change.

He picked a quote from "one" BAS scientist that suggested the melting of "one" glacier had slowed to a record slow-melt (still melting) in 2012 (one year) - then placed it in the context of debunking climate change. It makes about as much sense as saying climate change is debunked because a boat got stuck in Antarctic ice or we had a cold day in January.

Haslag is correct, BAS has a clear statement on climate change, which is easy to find on the Web. And Sampson may not have lied, at least he never said that BAS or Dr. Dutrieux doubted climate change; he simply cherry-picked information and used it out of context to deceive.

It will be interesting in a decade or two to look back at Dyke's climate-change cartoons and determine if they are still funny, or simply initiated an important discussion.

Will Sampson's grandkids look back and think he was smarter than all the scientists, or was he part of a fossil-fuel deception campaign that ruined their future?

My hope is that grandkids of Bob Haslag, Jim Findlay, Glenn Smead, Tony Smith, Joe Bachant, Kenneth Luebbering and others who have written excellent letters will look back and say my grandparents were heroes, because they took the steps that were needed to protect us from catastrophic climate change.