I would like to continue the conversation surrounding climate change and clean energy jobs, specifically in response to the Sept. 20th letter entitled “Evidence doesn’t support man-made climate change.” While Mr. Drietz is certainly entitled to his opinion, it should not, with all due respect, carry much weight in the public discussion surrounding these critical issues.

Mr. Drietz bases his supposed expertise on “a few years” of subscribing to scientific magazines, which would be a humorous claim if the stability and security of the natural world (that our lives and economy depend on) weren’t at stake. There are plenty of fields in which everyday citizens are able to educate themselves and become positive contributors to the debate, but science is rarely one of them.

It seems that those who deny humans’ impact on the climate like to present their ideas as if none of the thousands of scientists, who work on this issue for a living, had never thought of them before. To say that we should follow the advice of someone who has read a few short summaries of the research would be like inviting the fox into the hen house because he seems like a nice enough guy.

It is true that roughly 3 percent of climate scientists still question the existence or extent of our carbon emissions’ impact, but who exactly are these people, and should their work be trusted? It is widely known that most of them are directly funded by the oil and gas industries, whose financial interests depend on the ongoing destabilization of the natural world. This is the real conspiracy here, not that President Obama and the EPA are deliberately trying to undermine American jobs and freedom. What’s more, a recent article in the journal Theoretical and Applied Climatology (“Learning from mistakes in climate research”) found that the majority of climate change deniers’ results were severely flawed or otherwise unable to be reproduced. Although there have been many nails in the coffin before, this should finally be the last one.

I am not a scientist. I don’t pretend to have any special knowledge in subjects I have not rigorously studied, and I am willing to put my trust in those that have. It’s time we all did the same, for our own sakes and the world’s.

Greg Siems

Austin