Climate change is real, and it’s here

In response to the Tom Harris's letter to the editor, "What It Really Means", Jan. 29:

In response to the Tom Harris’s letter to the editor, “What It Really Means”, Jan. 29:

The consensus of the scientific community, including those who spend their entire careers studying atmospheric science, is that climate change is real, and that it is caused by human activity. The outlook is not good: massive changes to worldwide climate patterns and a large rise in sea levels over the next century.

The fact that carbon dioxide is, indeed, essential to life on Earth is not questioned by a single scientist. The problem is with the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, which have increased tremendously in the past three centuries with the massive increase in burning of fossil fuels that accompanied the industrial revolution and the centuries that followed it.

The amount of carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere is out of balance, trapping more heat, warming the oceans, changing ocean currents and weather patterns throughout the world. The debate is over. My generation will have to live with the consequences of the decisions made by previous generations and the inaction by the politicians who currently control our country.

As an American, you are free to believe who you want. I will trust in the 97 percent of peer-reviewed scientific journals, the American Medical Association, NOAA, NASA, American Chemical Society, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, Geological Society of America, U.S. National Academy of Sciences, hundreds of scientific societies around the world, and thousands of scientists who do climate research at universities around the world.

– Adam Braun