To the Editor:
As a pediatrician and clinical pathologist who has cared for children suffering from a wide range of illnesses worsened by environmental pollutants for two decades, it is almost comical to read the astounding array of misconceptions and ludicrous assertions propagated in the article “Environmentalists want to control people’s lives” in your June 10 issue. The article reads more like an advertisement from Exxon Mobile or like the rantings of McCarthy in the 1950s than anything remotely intelligent.
It is precisely this type of demonizing of genuine, data-driven concern of the global environment that leads to more arrogance, more ignorance and ultimately, more harm.
Yes, the Earth has gone and will go through repeated cycles of heating and cooling but has never done so at the rate at which it is happening now – with the exception I suppose of the last major meteor strike which wiped out 99 percent of all living things on the planet. This is setting the bar a little high for making some meaningful changes in our “lifestyle.” don’t you think? Furthermore, perhaps the author would like to explain his reasoning to his children, or perhaps mine.
Over 90 percent of U.S. and international climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, biologists, geologists and volcanologists have demonstrated overwhelmingly that human-induced climate change is drastically and unnaturally changing the planet much faster than thousands of animal and plant species can ever hope to adapt. What is most unfortunate is the implied ambivalence or denial of the fact that the most impoverished nations suffer the greatest from the global warming. A brief educational visit to the Centers for Disease Control will help explain why. And, since we contribute far more pollution and carbon dioxide per capita than any other nation on Earth, it underscores the irresponsibility of ignoring the problem.
On the issue of “controlling our lives,” it is painfully obvious that the author is blatantly unaware of how profoundly our fossil-fuel based “lifestyle” affects the very air we breathe, the food we eat and almost every aspect of our health. Is there anything really more important than self-control of your own bodily health? Of course, at the end of the day, when the facts don’t support your position, you can always fall back the “anti-American” routine as this author does – it’s been done before.
