‘Scholar’ deluded on climate truths

First, let me applaud The Post’s attempt to present the conservative point of view regarding climate change. The op-ed by Benjamin Zycher, of the American Enterprise Institute, certainly qualifies for the “other side” (“Strange silence on climate policy, apocalypse,” Jan. 4).

However, there is always a “however.” He is a “scholar” because the American Enterprise Institute says he is. In addition, while addressing the validity of scientific assessments, his doctorate is in economics and his publications are in economics — not in climatology, meteorology or even any branch of science. So, as I always told my students, “Consider the source.”

Furthermore, his arguments are so extreme that they are absurd. Zycher, while enthusiastically championing the strategy of the right to sow doubt and confusion, fails to look out the window.

The evidence for global warming is abundant to those whose salary does not depend on not seeing the following: a continued increase in average temperature of Earth; continued sea-level rise, threatening coastal properties; glacial melt worldwide, with isolated exceptions; diseases moving to higher elevations due to warming; greater arctic ice melt in summer, and shallower re-freeze in winter; changed migratory schedules for birds.

Zycher does his best for his employers, dithering about this report or that report. It’s always good to get people arguing over competing reports. However, his basic arguments sound something like the weatherman saying there is a 70 percent chance of rain, while it is already raining outside. sional action is the legitimate way of maintaining democracy and freedom in America.