Scientists to New Hampshire Primary Candidates: Climate Change is Real
By Michael Frank, Adventure Journal on January 5th, 2012
Republicans vying for votes in the state’s GOP primary next week were sent a letter by 50 prominent scientists from across the Granite state urging that the politicians pay attention to the reality that New Hampshire and the entire United States continues to grow warmer — and that the weather is also far more volatile, damaging, and costly to American’s wallets. Pretending that climate change is a theory (as all but Newt Gingrich have — now he’s calling it a theory again) is ignoring the reality that all Americans face. The letter makes it clear that the concern here isn’t that climate change is merely damaging to the environment, but puts things in clear, economic terms — terms that should add up for any politician, regardless of party allegiance.
Since when have Republicans cared about science, or facts?
I think a big part of why some people continue to discredit climate change is their misunderstanding of the word ‘theory’. In non-scientific usage, a theory isn’t certain, but in science, a theory is more accurately something that isn’t fully understood, but is proven to be correct. Take for example, the theory of gravity. Nobody really knows how gravity works, but scientists can measure its effect. Nobody says gravity doesn’t exist because it’s “just a theory.”