Congressman Tom McClintock’s column “On climate change — the sky is not falling” was a dangerous dismissal of climate science and failed to share the importance of the work to make Lake Tahoe more resilient.
His op-ed began with a story about Abraham Lincoln witnessing the largest meteor shower in history. Ironically, Lincoln was unfazed due to his knowledge and belief in science. He was a man of science, who helped to found the National Academy of Sciences. Today that very same Academy produces invaluable climate change handouts for policy-makers like McClintock.
According to the Academy, climate change is “a defining issue of our time” and “human activities … have increased the atmospheric CO2 concentrations by about 40%, with more than half the increase occurring since 1970.” The amount of warming we experience is directly related to the amount of greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activities.