Justin Gillis' Aug. 20 article "Sea Level Could Rise 3 Feet by 2100" is speculation, not science. The assertion that seas will likely rise by 3 feet is almost absurd, since current levels rise about 2 mm. per year (about 6 inches in 80 years). The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change's 95 percent certainty that "human activity is the primary influence" is ridiculous, since all 84 of the U.N. climate models (with this assumption) were proven wrong. There has been NO significant average global warming since 1998, according to trustworthy British data centers. The leader of the IPCC admits this. His chief scientists have been asked to look into effects of soot, ocean oscillations and solar magnetic fluctuations to explain this, since human CO2 theories do not.
The Earth has been warming for thousands of years, since the last ice age, long before humans started burning coal and oil. Glaciers have been melting for 150 to 200 years, well before internal combustion engines.
Responsible scientists agree that human activity has an important effect. It is time to also admit that natural causes have dominated the past and are still important now.
— Howard Maccabee
Alamo, Calif.
currently working in Anchorage