Segar letter: Climate change
The article titled “GOP lawmakers rebuff Democrat’s request for hearing on climate change” (Jan. 25) included numerous climate denier claims from conservative pundits, lobbyists and politicians, but only a single quote from Rep. Ilana Rubel supporting the need to address climate change.
While the quotes from our Idaho Legislature leaders did point out their misunderstanding of climate change and the need for an informational hearing on climate change that they are trying to suppress, future articles should present a more balanced view of the issue. For example, many readers would have been interested in hearing that 97 percent of all climate scientists agree that human-caused climate change is real, or that University of Idaho researchers have determined that “human-caused climate change caused twice as much forest to burn in the West,” as cited in Rocky Barker’s Oct. 10, 2016, article in Letters from the West.
The leadership of the Idaho Legislature may refuse to listen to our scientists, but that does not preclude the Statesman from equally reporting on climate change science to your readers. If we continue to ignore what scientists are telling us, climate change will continue to worsen with dire consequences.
John Segar, Boise
This story was originally published February 15, 2017 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Segar letter: Climate change."