Editor:
The climate science is not settled? Yes, in a pedantic sense, Gordon Politeski is right; it’s not. But what he seems unaware of is that science and common sense are not incompatible.
It is nonsensical to run a scientific experiment that is unprecedented in human history if falsification of the hypotheses, which the best scientific judgment feels most probable, will result in destruction of the ecological niche occupied by modern western human societies, among others.
A sane person would not choose to run unprotected into a burning building simply to test the hypothesis that he might survive. The science is not settled on that either. But what evidence we have suggests death is a probable result, and one has only one life to lose.
Similarly, we western industrialized humans have only one world to lose, and the best evidence available today and scientists conclusions from it suggest that it is more likely than not we will lose our habitable environment within the lifetimes of most of us if we do not start very, very soon to take actions expected, on the available evidence and theory, to limit the maximum average global temperature increase to something in the range of 1.5 to 2.0 degrees.
Pedantically, we cannot say this is a scientific truth. But it is certainly prudent, in the opinions of the vast majority of scientists who are not paid to say otherwise. If Mr. Politeski needs a bit of jargon that is as logically defensible as the scientific method, it’s called “the precautionary principle.”
Henry Hightower, Sechelt
