Climate 'denier' label an insult

Many commenters published here assert that the world and the U.S. need to dramatically reduce carbon emissions to save the planet from what they claim will be the catastrophic effects of a rising global temperature. If you don't subscribe to their beliefs you are labeled a "denier," an obvious and odious reference to those who deny the Holocaust.

Instead of arguing the merits of various scientific findings, many just apply this label. I don't "deny" climate change or global warming, because it is clear that the Earth has warmed slightly in the last century. I also believe that increasing amounts of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere are a factor in that warming; however, CO2 is not the only driver of climate.

What is in dispute is Earth's temperature sensitivity to increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and the pause in global warming. Since I embrace the idea of warming and that CO2 is a factor, along with other drivers including natural variability, the label "denier" is used purely for its vilification value and does not accurately reflect my position on climate.

Moreover, the "carbon reduction activists" almost never define the level of reduction required, the impact on global temperature reduction/stabilization of their specified reduction and the cost of such a reduction.

However, the National Center for Atmospheric Research funded by the U.S. EPA has developed a climate model simulator called Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change, MAGICC for short, which addresses at least one of the issues left untouched by climate activist.

The model estimates that if the top 90 OECD Industrialized countries reduced their carbon emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, the world would avoid a temperature increase of an "astronomical" 0.084 degrees C!

But at what cost and to whom?

Joe H. Heater

Palatine