Global warming is real, not a scam

I would like to respond to Marc Thomsen's Feb. 9th letter, in which he derides Al Gore's environmental activism as a "gloom and despair global warming scam" and accuses those who are concerned about the effects of global warming of trying to "blame everything on 'man,' especially on industrial nation capitalist man."

For someone who claims to dislike Democratic hyperbole, Thomsen does a wonderful job concocting his own.

Let's be clear: Global warming isn't a scam, but rather a serious issue facing future generations that has political, economic, and health implications.

Just last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- a committee comprised of representatives of more than 130 countries and 2,500 scientific experts--released a study verifying the existence of global warming and man's role in causing it.

The report was endorsed by over 30 scientific organizations, including the American Meteorological Association, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics, the American Chemical Society, and the Geological Society of America.

Many people seem to think that accepting the reality of global warming has to be synonymous with some kind of massive reordering of the modern world.

A few small changes in our daily habits to conserve energy and limit our pollutants will have a far-ranging, positive effect on the problem.

And the need for environmentally aware technology will create new jobs and markets in the industrialized, capitalist world.

Ryan Peters

Bartlett