Climate facts

In response to “Climate is cyclical” by Phil Thayer (Jan. 4). Phil believes billions of dollars will be wasted addressing climate change because weather is cyclical and man doesn’t know what to do. I disagree.

The level of CO2 in our atmosphere for the last 800,000 years never exceeded 300 parts per million, but is 415 ppm now — 78% of this increase has occurred since 1970.

If you’d like to know why this matters and how CO2 affects global warming, it is very simple to understand and will only take 1 minute of your time. Go to: howglobalwarmingworks.org/in-under-1-minute-ab.html.

The 2017 US Climate Science Special Report stated: “it is extremely likely [95-100% confidence] that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20thcentury. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

To avoid the expense, risks and impacts continued growth in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will bring about, the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report calls for a 45% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 from 2010 levels, and net zero emissions by 2050.

Every National Academy of Science in the world concurs with these findings.

For those of us who wish to preserve this planet for future generations, and avoid climate change disaster costs, investing trillions of dollars addressing climate change is what sound judgment requires us to do.

Del Nord

Spokane Valley