It is encouraging to see letters from high school students who are concerned about local and national problems. Yet, on the other hand it is disconcerting to see students who have wrongfully been frightened into believing that climate change will be irreversible and destroy the earth by 2030. How many times in the past have we seen prophets of doom and their exaggerated predictions? A significant number of predictions made by Al Gore and those of his ilk have proven false. There is no credible scientific evidence that the earth will be doomed in the next 12 years, or even the next 100 years. Real climate scientists are not in total agreement.
Yes, there is climate change. There has always been climate change. When I was in high school, we were warned about the coming “ice age.” Some even suggested placing dark chemicals on the north pole to warm it up. Now, it has changed to global warming, or just plain old climate change. At one time the earth was an uninhabitable ball of ice. There is no consensus about man’s contribution to climate change. If it were not for some global warming the Laurentide Ice Sheet would never have melted and we would not have the Great Lakes.
Perhaps our students should be made more aware of the science, and be pushing for more research rather than so called “fixes” which have not been proven.This is a very complex subject over which opinion has changed over many years. Granted, our footprint on this earth should be as minimal as possible.