With all this conflicting “scientific” information, just how does one come to a proper conclusion about climate change, especially if you are not a scientist like Al Gore, Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck? Perhaps a person simply has to rely on indisputable facts, critical-thinking skills and common sense.

Indisputable: There are more people on the planet than there have ever been. Human beings exhaust two gases, carbon dioxide and methane (some producing equal amounts – you know who you are.) There are more cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, jet skis, snowmobiles, weed whackers, etc. than there have ever been – again, exhaust. More coal-fired power plants, more oil refineries, more factories and more flatulating farm animals (you know who you are). Human activity, however, has not just worked at “more,” we also have caused there to be fewer C02-consuming rain forests.

Critical thinking: All climate-change cycles are cause-and-effect driven. There have been, and are, reasons the climate has changed and is changing. A change in Earth’s tilt, volcanic activity and continental drift are some of the natural causes that have effected a change in the climate. Two-hundred-fifty years of carbon-based industrialization – how is that not a human cause to what now is in evidence?

Common sense: Put 200 people in the Astrodome for a monster truck rally and feed them hard-boiled eggs, kimchi, bean burritos, an unlimited supply of cheap cigars and shelf-life expired beer. No problem, especially with a multi-ton indoor air-conditioning system. But what happens if you put 75,000 people in there under the same conditions (football game capacity, 60,000), then reduce the air-quality system to a dozen bedroom-window units?

Kevin Devine

Durango