Editor,

I am responding to the letter from David Powell of Oak Harbor in your May 27, 2017 edition in which he again expresses his concerns. The good news is that there are straight forward answers to these concerns and we can all move forward.

There is a consensus on the causes, and there are many solutions already being implemented with positive impacts on the U.S. economy and people. See for example the recent down-to-earth — pardon the pun! — book by Michael Bloomberg and Carl Pope, Climate of Hope, in which they show ways in which cities, businesses and citizens can save the planet in ways that will have positive impacts on the U.S. economy and people.

The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90-100 percent of respected climate scientists, according to independent studies reported by John Cook and his co-authors in a 2016 compilation.

These results are consistent with the 97 percent consensus reported in 2013 by Cook et al based on 11,944 abstracts of research papers, of which 4,014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. Links to these publications and consensus statements by major American Scientific Societies are publicly available at https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/.

The physics of global warming by greenhouse gases should be familiar to any backyard gardener.

Incoming light from the sun is absorbed by the land and ocean. The heated land and ocean then re-emits some of this energy which is prevented from escaping the Earth by CO2 in the upper atmosphere. Exactly as a “greenhouse” works. The science of this was established over 100 years ago.

With regard to the recent climate “hiatus” that Mr. Powell refers to, 2016 was the warmest year on record during human civilization, smashing the record set in 2015, which again beat the record which had been previously set in 2014 and so on. The warming trend is clear.

This is not a doom and gloom scenario! We have a consensus and there are many steps we can take which will help. Let’s get on with it!

Robin Charlwood

Freeland