The Open Forum The heat is on in climate change battle
Climate change is driving dryer conditions that are resulting in historic wildfires across the West Coast. We could see and smell it in our own backyards in Colorado. If it were not for an unprecedented September snowstorm, the smoke would likely be just as bad here as it is in Oregon and California. While we are relatively lucky this time, we are not in the clear indefinitely. It’s time for our leaders like Sen. Cory Gardner and Sen. Michael Bennet to pass a climate change solution that will work. I support the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act ( H. R. 763). Where there’s fire, there’s smoke.
Christina Johnson, Denver Rushing headlong toward a cliff of doom is the wrong metaphor for the climate crisis — danger unseen until the last moment of disaster.
In reality, we have had plenty of warning about it over the years, from many climate scientists. They and their colleagues have been writing about it since at least the middle of the last century.
A better metaphor might be rushing headlong toward a wall of fire. It’s better because the closer we get, the hotter we feel, providing plenty of close, personal warning of impending doom. It’s already happening, as California, literally, is on fire along with parts of Colorado.
It’s a fairly simple concept, this climate crisis. Civilization was built on the acceptance of science and the remarkable technologies that has provided. It is the way we have used or misused this knowledge that has brought us such trouble. Open, market- driven, free enterprise is a powerful force that has produced much good. For longterm success, such a force needs constraint by regulations to help avoid the worst consequences of its excesses.
Something fundamental has to happen soon. We simply must return to the rules of law, ethics, morality, and good old common sense, to accelerate the current marketdriven transition from fossil fuels to more energy efficiency and renewable energy, before it is too late to avoid the beginnings of societal collapse. One might say the collapse has already started. Societies may not disappear, but they will be degraded enough that complete collapse could be possible.
Ross McCluney, Boulder Editor’s note: McCluney is a retired principal research scientist from the University of Central Florida.
Re: “In visit, Trump to confront scientific reality he denies,”
President Donald Trump is not the only one to deny scientific reality. Let’s consider the decades of forest mismanagement in Colorado due to environmentalist denial of healthy forest management. Native Americans cleared underbrush and dead wood to prevent devastating fires and also to promote the ability to hunt game. During the Clinton administration, I wondered why an acre size beetle kill around Breckenridge was not removed to prevent spread. It was against environmental policy. Now the entire hillside has been cut to remove the dead wood to prevent fires. There was an inability to address the problem due to policies such as roadless initiatives. Areas loaded with dead wood and underbrush seriously threatened our forest. Add global warming to the equation; we are in a serious condition. Where was scientific reality then? Political correctness rules again.
Dale Brinkman, Littleton