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Wednesday, October 9, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Climate science is not
a liberal conspiracy
By David Winter
Guest Columnist
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
To the Editor,
In the September 25th edition of the Sisters
Nugget, my Letter to the Editor was published.
At the conclusion of my letter about Sisters
needing better police protection, I stated that
<It9s time for the Sisters City Council to act
on re-establishing a Sisters city police depart-
ment, sooner rather than later.=
In the most recent edition of The Nugget,
there was a Commentary on page 20 titled
<Sisters can9t afford it9s [sic] own police
department,= written by Laurie Kimmell,
Deputy Multnomah County Sheriff9s Office.
(retired). In her excellent article she points out
the expense of establishing a police depart-
ment. She certainly has more experience in
this than I have, and I respect her opinion.
However, she points out that in order to
have an effective police force in Sisters, it
would require <at least six to eight police
officers working eight-hour shifts, 40 hours
per week, with full coverage.= She goes on to
state it would also require <a supervisor (Sgt.
or Lt.) assigned to oversee them,= and would
require <a six-car minimum, bicycles, and
other pertinent equipment.=
Is this what the Deschutes County Sheriff
Office is currently providing? I certainly have
no objection to having Deschutes County pro-
vide this kind of service if it saves money over
having our own police department and if, in
fact, the Deschutes County Sheriff will guar-
antee this type of two-man police force will be
stationed inside the Sisters city limit 24/7.
Right now, anyone can observe that this
is not what we are getting under the current
contract with Deschutes County Sheriff9s
Office. And as I stated before, no citizen or
See LETTERS on page 30
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A recent column about
climate change in The
Nugget demands a rebut-
tal. The column expressed a
number of <facts= and opin-
ions, only one of which do I
fully agree with, and that is
that climate science has been
politicized.
As proof of how our
politics are impacting sci-
ence, consider that 27% of
Republicans express concern
about climate change while
83% of Democrats express
that same concern (Pew
Research Center Poll). This
is not the same in the rest of
the world. The GOP climate-
change platform is the oppo-
site of conservative plat-
forms in the UK, Norway,
Sweden, Spain, Canada,
New Zealand, Australia,
and Germany (Platform and
Manifesto Study, University
of Bergen, Norway).
Consider the following.
Is climate change settled
science? Yes. 97.2 percent
of climate scientists agree
that mankind is respon-
sible for the current, soon-
to-be-catastrophic, climate
change. (NASA, Berkeley,
U.S. National Academy of
Sciences).
The past five years are the
warmest years in recorded
history (NOAA).
The rate of warming in
the second half of the 20th
century was higher than dur-
ing any similar period of the
past 2,000 years (Columbia
University Study).
A one-degree tempera-
ture drop caused the <Little
Ice Age.= A five-degree drop
buried a large part of North
America under a towering
mass of ice 20,000 years
ago (NASA). A four-degree
rise will cause unprece-
dented flooding, heat waves,
droughts, storms and rising
global sea levels.
Are we giving our youth
all of the facts in lower edu-
cation? Yes. Sadly, under the
Trump administration, many
federal agencies have deleted
information about climate
science from their websites.
On the plus side, 642 insti-
tutions now offer degrees in
environmental sustainability
(Princeton Review).
The position of the GOP
rejects the need to tackle cli-
mate change as evidenced
by the recent withdrawal
from the Paris Agreement.
One hundred and ninety-five
countries signed and support
the Paris Agreement includ-
ing all of the top-GDP coun-
tries, except for the U.S.,
who have now withdrawn
courtesy of Donald Trump.
The five countries that get
the lowest possible score
according to climateaction
tracker.org; United States,
Russia, Ukraine, Turkey
and Saudi Arabia. That list
should concern us for so
many reasons.
Since the U.S. departed
from the Paris Agreement,
China has doubled down.
They are making huge
investments in new technol-
ogy and are moving away
from fossil fuels. They are
the world9s largest investor
in solar and wind technol-
ogy and now have more jobs
in solar energy than in coal-
mining. China9s strategy is
to dominate climate science
technologies.
The Trump administra-
tion believes that reducing
the use of fossil fuels will
harm our economy. As is
typical of this administration
this is unsupported by facts
and widely disputed. China
is setting out to prove this
wrong.
When I was a kid there
were three TV stations; NBC,
CBS and ABC. Journalists
from these stations, for the
most part, reported the same
facts through trusted anchors
like Walter Cronkite. We all
subscribed to these same or
very similar set of facts thus
enabling meaningful debate.
Contrast that to today
where most of us subscribe
to the <news= outlets that
align with at least one of
our beliefs, and because of
politicization we most often
inherit the whole platform of
beliefs.
It would be very unusual
for MSNBC fans to watch
Fox News and vice-versa.
If one is a <climate-denier,=
there is a likelihood that
they would also be anti-
immigration, have a low
tolerance for LGBTQ rights,
etc. Algorithms of social
media companies force-feed
us content that reinforces
our perceived political
preferences.
We live in echo-chambers.
The politicization of
climate science is one of
many issues dividing us as
Americans.
Of all the global and
domestic issues being
debated today, this is the one
that we can9t get wrong.
Climate science is not a
liberal conspiracy.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.