Duncan - Re: stop printing letters denying climate change (Nov. 21) "Climate change" has become an all-too-elastic phrase that means everything, and thus nothing.
Of course the climate changes. At issue is whether man is a cause of it, to what extent, and whether there's third variable factors that haven't been discovered or properly researched yet. It is premature to claim that people who are skeptical of the anthropogenic theory of global warming are "spreading lies". Climate alarmists try to get a leg up by claiming that the opposition is not only wrong, but evil. They use phrases like "the science is settled" which proves nothing more than that they have no understanding of how science works.Science is not static. Without skepticism and rigorous exploration of all possibilities, science does not move forward. Many times in history, scientists who were scoffed at and told they were wrong have been eventually proven correct, though they were on the margins of popular consensus of their day. Stifling their debates would have been wrong then, and it's wrong now.By the way, if we were actually bound by the standard that "errors of fact" should not be printed in newspapers, the letter writer's letter shouldn't have made it past the editorial desk, simply for the assumption that newspapers print letters based on the idea that a majority of the citizens hold the opinions they contain.April J. GibsonDuncan