It’s foolish to sit idly by while the earth is warming

Editor: I can imagine that Thor, Zeus, Odin and the other gods are laughing, but I doubt that Gaia is other than crying over the despoiling of her earth by mankind.

As anyone who knows science knows, it does not deal in absolutes, but what it deals with is the nature of reality. It is nothing more than the application of the scientific principle.

It deals in theories and proofs of them. All conclusions drawn from repeated testing by independent scientists are always open to change if new data and proofs so require.

The conclusions drawn from this method have given mankind an enormous boost in standard and quality of living.

I am sure that Tom Harris has flown in airplanes and watched TV and probably wrote his opinion (The gods must be laughing, Aug. 21) piece on a computer. All are products of science and demonstrate a remarkable degree of truth in the underlying theories of flight and electromagnetic waves. I am also sure that he does not walk outside terrified that gravity may suddenly stop and he will be flung off the earth.

No, science does not deal in absolutes, but what it states will happen under a given set of circumstances is about as close to the truth as humans can get while still living with the uncertainty that underlies all human endeavours.

Science also turns to Bayesian logic to help with this uncertainty by giving it a probability rating. (Bayesian logic is a way to quantify a situation with an uncertain outcome through determining its probability).

The barn is on fire and we can try to save it, if we can, or we can argue what the cause is. Betsy the cow kicked over a lantern, the kids where smoking in the hayloft, lightning strike or even spontaneous combustion from the manure pile.

We do know that the earth is undergoing an unprecedented period of warming and if this continues it is going to be very catastrophic to civilization as a good portion of the earth’s population is coastal.

Bayesian logic has been applied to climate science and points to humans being at the very least 50 per cent of the cause. We may not be able to stop the climate from changing but at least we should try.

The only reason not to stop polluting is financial greed and that is a terrible tragedy.

The above is the absolute, untarnished, unambiguous, unequivocal truth as I see it.