Letter: Climate change deniers are criminal

From the York (PA) Daily Record.

Climate change deniers are criminal

Letter to the Editor
Updated: 03/15/2013 01:36:01 PM EDT

I have a friend who says, “Extinction is bad for business!” The context for this remark is our current planetary plight of accelerating climate disruptions.
Like so many other Americans, my friend knows that there is a worldwide scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activities — such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels — that increase atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases.
He also knows that the fossil fuel industry has engaged in a massive disinformation and lobbying campaign to discredit climate science, slow progress on international climate treaties, and prevent government regulations reducing carbon emissions.

My friend understands that the motives of the fossil fuel business are profit-driven, but short-sighted. Eventually, he reasons, they’ll see that their strategy is bad for business.

Let’s hope they wake up sooner rather than later. I’d like to leave my children and grandchildren with a habitable planet, wouldn’t you?
Maybe it’s time we stood up to those who are funding climate change denial and call them what they are: criminals who are stealing our children’s future.

JERRY LEE MILLER
LANCASTER