In regards to Justin Spaid’s March 2 column regarding climate change: you blindly accuse scientists of knowing nothing more about climate change today than they did in the 1970s. This column is a reprehensible affront at the accomplishments of modern science as a whole, and human understanding of the Earth as a dynamic system.

First, you invoke the “global cooling” fears of the 1970s. This was during the nascent stages of the science world’s understanding of climate change; we realized that the Earth had been colder, and hotter, in past times.

Furthermore, analysis of data in the 1970s was limited in both precision — due to the limitations of analytical equipment — and breadth of time covered, a result of minimal funding for climate-related research.

Finally, as you keenly point out, the study that invokes a conclusion of global cooling is, in fact, based on 30 years of data.

Our current understanding of global climate change is based largely in the form of ice-core and tree ring analyses that span 650,000 years into the past.

During those 650,000 years, there indeed have been minor cooler and warmer periods of time. However, upon analysis of that data and long-term trends over several thousands of years, scientists have concluded that the Earth is getting warmer.

The general consensus in the scientific community is that this would be happening naturally, even without human intervention, but we are exacerbating the process.

So, I implore of you, among the many other flaws in your article, that you please take your time and pay attention to the scale of scientific data and its origins.

Before making wild accusations such as “scientists [and] climatologists don’t know what they are talking about,” maybe you could actually speak to a scientist or a climatologist. We’d love to chat with you.

Andy Fornadel

Graduate Student

Geological and atmospheric sciences