I have not yet seen "An Inconvenient Truth," but I've just put it at the top of my NetFlix list and it should be here in a few days. But I have been following this matter for decades.

The vast majority of scientists say—and have been saying for some time now—that the evidence for global warming and climate change is verifiable and incontrovertible.

Although there may be other factors involved (periodic natural variations in climate and minute fluctuations in the sun's radiation), the major contributor to the current increase in the earth's mean temperature is man-cause atmospheric pollution. Those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo ("Screw the future—all that matters is the Quarterly Financial Report!") point to these natural fluctuations and try to claim that that's all there is to it and there is no cause for concern. But that is not a knowledgeable scientifically based opinion, nor, for that matter is it even a defendable political opinion. It's pure self-induced blindness.

It is the intellectual—and moral—equivalent of refusal to acknowledge that they are enjoying their picnic between the railroad tracks while the train is rushing toward them.

Those who try to debunk the idea of global warming, or claim that it is a political issue, not a scientific issue, simple do not understand—do not want to understand—what they are really dealing with.

It is possible, and the way we're going, it is very likely, that in a much shorter time that anybody (except scientists, particularly meteorologists and planetologists) think possible, we could reach a tipping-point, and set off an irreversible runaway green-house effect, and within a frighteningly short period of time—a few very short and agonizing years, not a few centuries, or even a few decades—this planet will be rendered uninhabitable. Once we hit that tipping-point, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop it.

Those who claim that this is a political issue, not a scientific issue simply have no concept of the enormity of what they are playing at.

Don Firth