Consensus vs. fact

Letter writer Stanley D. Murray ("Opposing Views," Dec. 28) would have us believe "there is not universal scientific consensus on this issue [human-caused global warming], and therefore the timing of the drastic and potentially economically disastrous measures being called for by those who insist that there is, is premature to say the least."

In Mr. Murray's sense, there is not "universal consensus" on gravity, relativity or the Big Bang, either. But the fact is, 97 percent of professional climatologists believe at this point that (1) global warming is happening, (2) human technology is causing it and (3) it is the biggest problem humanity has ever faced outside of nuclear war.

The fact that some "scientists" disagree, most of them amateurs if not complete crackpots, and many with science degrees in subjects other than climatology, means nothing at this point. Having a degree in the wrong subject confers no expertise; William Shockley may have been a great physicist, but that gave him no standing to babble about race and IQ. It's almost superfluous to point out that the "scientists" Mr. Murray believes are often funded by oil and coal companies.

It is my considered professional opinion as someone with a physics degree who has been writing atmosphere models for 12 years that if we do not massively switch to renewable sources of energy in the next decade, and away from fossil fuels, and stop cutting down forests, human civilization will collapse completely sometime in the next 40 years. That is something Mr. Murray can accurately say there is not yet consensus on. The fact and the danger of anthropogenic global warming is not.

BARTON PAUL LEVENSON
Greenfield