Local climate change 'denier' makes poor arguments

We are perplexed by a recent column on global climate change written by Jack Scott, identified in the Insights and Ideas section of Sunday's Banner-Herald as "a local bookbinder and restorator" who lives in Jackson County (The Big Idea, "Climate change consensus").

Scott's commentary demonstrated a lack of understanding of science and how it searches for truths about the natural world. Moreover, he provided no facts to support his charge that global climate change is "bogus science."

The examples he cited actually involve science eventually winning out over pseudo-science as new facts are discovered:

► Copernicus and Galileo's scientific discoveries supporting a sun-centered solar system as opposed to the prevailing religious belief that had Earth at the center.

► Mendelian genetics in the context of crop improvement against the views of Stalin-era Soviet communist leaders who wished to believe in Trofim Lysenko's ideas about inheritance of acquired traits.

We could add to this list Darwinian evolution by natural selection against the views of fundamentalist Christians who believe literally in the biblical account of creation.

In all of these cases, the truth became apparent in light of new scientific facts. On the subject of global climate change, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (www.epa.gov/climatechange), the facts are these:

► An "unequivocal" warming trend of about 1.0 to 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit occurred from 1906 to 2005.

► Human activities have changed the composition of Earth's atmosphere, resulting in increased levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide since pre-industrial times.

► Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

► The atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.

► The major greenhouse ga

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