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Climate crisis denials unsupported by science

In anti-science diatribes, climate deniers often trot out familiar nonsense about climate science (letters March.16). They should know:

Atmospheric scientists know there have been several ice ages during our hundreds of million-year history, and the planet has been warmer than today. However, exploring the factors causing past climate shifts reveals that only human-induced emissions of various greenhouse gases correlates with the current rapid warming.

The fact that human-induced emissions of climate polluting gases is a small fraction of their overall historic flux is irrelevant. But, this fraction is sufficient to upset the balance of the exchange between Earth and atmosphere and because some of these gases last from centuries to millennia, so the imbalance builds up over time.

To argue there is no evidence of a climate crisis is to ignore the increasing temperature, declining snowpack, dryer summers/wetter winters, wildfire risk that Southern Oregon is experiencing along with the extreme weather events.

Climate scientists are aware of the factors that have influenced global temperature over the eons and understand that only variation in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases correlates with the rising temperature we have experienced since the Industrial Revolution.

The most commonly claimed denier reasons for current warming have been demonstrated as false e.g., we are still emerging from the last ice age; the wobble of the Earth (Milankovitch Cycle); solar radiation. If this warming trend is caused by a natural factor, this must be a factor new to science.

Trisha Vigil / Medford

Crying wolf over climate won’t lead to change

Climate alarmists won’t convince us to give up everything else and invest in wind and solar, risking national financial collapse.

However loud the 30 years of warning, the nations will not do more than they are doing to limit greenhouse gases. That is reality. The years tell us a larger response simply will not happen.

We do not need to respond. The bad things that have been repeatedly predicted turned out to be good. Increased CO2 and some warming have made a more comfortable, more productive world.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has basic research that does not support their wolf cries. The main function of IPCC is to enable the feeding frenzy for government money. They can claim a consensus because realism is not allowed in their count.

Alarmism is supported by flaming editorial cartoons and wolf cries.

Realism is supported by long-range, worldwide measurements.

Ira Edwards / Medford

Renewal district would lead to ‘double’ trouble

If the city of Medford creates a new Urban Renewal District, the police and fire departments need not worry about diverted taxes as city leadership will just raise utility fees to cover any shortfalls.

Thus, Medford citizens will be paying double for services.

Bob Shand / Medford

Protect free speech, even when you disagree

A writer claims to be a journalist and believe in the First Amendment, but then calls for censorship of a letter he views as “irresponsible.”

Doesn’t he understand that the First Amendment was written precisely to protect speech that other people don’t like?

A lot of terrible things have happened in the last few years, including shocking actual censorship by media, medicine and government.

Most heartbreaking to me is how many citizens applaud this. Did their public schooling do this to them?

They have no idea the future horror they are helping to create, but if they knew history, they wouldn’t be so

cavalier.

The answer to problematic speech is MORE speech. Debate, correct, discuss. But if anyone says that your views should be censored, the proper response is, “How dare you?” Then speak even more. It’s time for some moral outrage. What the writer called for is NOT NORMAL.

It’s morally wrong. It’s DANGEROUS.

Three years of government overreach have showed a lot of formerly complacent citizens that freedom is precious after all, and easily lost.

Freedom is not just “the way things are.”

Some people sneer at the idea of freedom.

They’re hopeless. Good-hearted people of all perspectives who understand the stakes must unite around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, full stop. “Free speech, but” is self-negating.

Except for inciting violence or defamation, all speech is protected, and that’s a great thing.

The more tyrants demand censorship, the more we should speak. Don’t let them win.

Lynn Barton / Medford

Eggs and Rabbits at Easter … or Jesus?

As a child of 7 or 8 years, I remember leaning over my elementary school water fountain for a drink, and wondering, “What in the world does bunnies and chickies have to do with Jesus and God?”

It confused me as a child. I never liked looking for eggs anyway.

Everyone else always found more, and to me they smelled funny. It turns out we can thank Roman Emperor Constantine for convoluting Jesus’s great sacrifice with a pagan fertility rite. Even the word “Easter” is a tip off, since that word does not appear in the Bible but is named for Eostre, the fertility goddess of spring.

Jesus, as a Jew, celebrated his last Passover with his apostles and told them, (and us, his disciples) “keep doing this in remembrance of me.”

On Nisan 14, Jesus gave his perfect sinless body as a “ransom sacrifice” so that we, the whole human race, can have the opportunity to live and speak to God in prayer.

Once per year, we memorialize that great act of love he and his father showed. This year the date is April 4, after sundown.

After all, this is the only event Jesus told his followers that they MUST remember and celebrate.

Penny Nichols / Medford