Editor:
I was actually taken aback when I read the headline to your editorial in the Dec. 24 Coast Reporter, “Enough already about climate change,” as if it is some kind of pesky local issue that just won’t go away.
By the tone of your editorial it almost seems like you are treating climate change deniers with more sympathy than those defending the science.
How ironic that your piece should appear in the same issue of the paper which features Sean Eckford’s article, “Senior staff to follow up on Paris climate agreement,” indicating local appreciation of the magnitude of the problem to be dealt with, particularly in the wake of increasing drought, forest fires, water shortages, diminishing snowpack, etc., right here on the Sunshine Coast!
You must be aware that the public is more focused and concerned about climate change than it has ever been, but rather than welcoming debate you are limiting it.
The writer of one of the “denier” letters made the unsubstantiated claim that consensus among scientists was debunked in 2008. Really?
NASA reports that there is consensus among MORE than 97 per cent of published and peer reviewed scientists (http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus) that climate warming trends are likely due to human activity. Yet you seem to want to invalidate credited scientific institutions such as NASA, IPCC, NOAA, Academy of Sciences, etc., by offhandedly referring to the “UN agenda” and “this globalist enterprise.”
To trivialize the most important issue defining our time by saying “Enough already” is to miss the point, and sadly disappointing for this reader.
Bette Chadwick, Sechelt
