To the editor,
Its time to pull the rug out from under President Obama’s war on coal. That means attacking the primary excuse for the administration’s plans: the idea that carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired electricity generation are contributing to dangerous climate change.
Letter writer Bruce Sampson provides an excellent example of what coal proponents must do all the time: explain to the public that climate science does not support the scare. I would add to his analysis that the science is so immature that we don’t even know if warming or cooling lie ahead. While some scientists say we are headed for warming because of CO2 emissions, others, such as Russian solar scientists, assert that dangerous cooling lie in the decades ahead.
The truth is, we simply do not know. Trying to unravel the causes and consequences of climate change is arguably the most complex science ever tackled. Professors Chris Essex (University of Western Ontario) and Ross McKitrick (University of Guelph) write in their award-winning book Taken by Storm, “Climate is one of the most challenging open problems in modern science. Some knowledgeable scientists believe that the climate problem can never be solved.”
Yet on this basis, leaders in the coal industry should be telling the public, the President is planning to destroy country’s most important power source and, with it, thousands of jobs. Not highlighting the flimsy science driving the climate scare, as happened last month in the pro-coal rally in Washington DC, will undoubtedly result in the death of coal in America, just as it did here in Ontario where frightened coal supporters let the industry die rather than risk politically incorrectness.
Tom Harris
executive director
International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Ontario
