Climate woes are a very real problem

A letter from Steve Hatcher appeared in the May 27 Bee in which he "dismissed it all as brain-freeze." The climatologists who he sites are the brain-frozen ones. The facts state otherwise.

Carbon dioxide, the major atmospheric gas that traps the sun's heat on earth has increased about 50 percent since humans began extracting coal and other fossil fuels from below the earth's surface and burning them.

Warming our planet correlates very strongly with the increase in carbon dioxide. The glaciers and snow of the Arctic and Antarctic are melting faster than they have for at least 600,000 years, and ocean levels are rising as a result.

Animals from whales and polar bears to birds and insects are either dying or changing their behavioral patterns in response to climate changes. Trees are being stressed and attacked by beetles and disease-causing pathogens.

For more than 30 years, real scientists have been gathering data of numerous kinds that support the existence of global climate change and that human activities are largely responsible. Mr. Hatcher should hope and pray that his inner-tube doesn't develop a leak.

FIELDS COBB

Sagle