Editor:
I would like to respond to Gordon Politeski’s letter, “Science not settled,” on climate change (Coast Reporter, Dec. 11).
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body on the subject. Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis, and 95 countries, including Canada, are members of the IPCC. The IPCC has issued several reports, the most recent of which is AR5 (www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/index.shtml).
According to AR5, the analysis of data from climate stations all over the world shows that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.” Further: “the largest contributor to climate change is the increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide caused by human activities since 1750.”
What about the “projections” that Mr. Politeski dismisses? Projections of future climate are based on climate models, and because the model outputs are predictions, they require “confidence” assessments. For example, IPCC scientists have medium confidence that warmer and/or more frequent hot days and nights over most land areas will occur between 2016 and 2035, but have very high confidence that these changes will take place between 2081 and 2100.
So is the science settled? I leave the last word to Suncor Energy, the Calgary-based company that is synonymous with oilsands development: “The international scientific community is nearly unanimous that climate change is a real and growing global challenge with human activity as the principal cause … Suncor accepts the scientific consensus, publicly stating that climate change is happening and we need to take action” (www.suncor.com/en/responsible/1394.aspx).
Ray Kostaschuk, Garden Bay
