Letters: In debate over climate change, count on science instead of ideology

Cal Thomas consistently denies the reality of global change, even puts “climate change” in quotation marks when he feels forced to write the words (“Keystone kaput — for now,” Nov. 11).

I would like to share with him (and the rest of us) a sentence from a research article in the fall edition of Dukenvironment, a publication of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment: “Although our analysis showed that temperature’s effect on opinion was as large or larger than the impacts of race, education, religion, or gender, we nonetheless found that party ID and political ideology still were the primary forces shaping people’s perceptions of climate change.”

The primary focus shaping Cal Thomas’ opinions on climate change is very clearly political ideology. If we want to bet our children’s future on someone’s personal political ideology, nobody can change our mind; but I’d really prefer to fall back on actual science if at all possible.

This story was originally published November 17, 2015 at 1:14 PM.