Global climate change is scientific fact, not just theory

Ron Nash ("Global-Warming Legislation Will Mean New Tax," Sentinel, Letters to the Editor, Aug. 2) distorts and ignores several facts in his response to my letter, "Congress: Follow New Jersey's Global-Warming Lead" (Sentinel, Letters to the Editor, July 26).

This writer claims I'm using the "newly revised term for global warming, which is global climate change." In fact, I used both terms in my original letter. Scientists prefer the term "global climate change" because in some areas of the world, average temperatures will actually decline. However, residents of the United States are already experiencing an increase in average temperatures due to climate change, so both terms are appropriate for residents of this part of the globe.

Skeptics like to refer to global warming as a "theory." Unfortunately for our planet, global warming is no longer just a theory but a tragic fact. As we speak, people in Arctic regions, as well as animal species such as polar bears, find their very existences threatened by excessive warming of their climate. If unchecked, the problem will undoubtedly jeopardize our own climate.

The letter writer's most egregious claim is that "you rarely hear about global climate change from real scientists." On the contrary, scientists from such organizations as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, The National Academy of Sciences, NASA and the Union of Concerned Scientists have all published reports demonstrating that global climate change is real and largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels by humans. It is our destructive habit of consuming fossil fuels that New Jersey's legislation seeks to reverse by promoting clean, renewable energy.

When it comes to the dangers of climate change, we need less misinformed opinions and more of the scientific facts that global-warming deniers conveniently ignore.

Eddie Konczal

Monroe