WARMING: Better safe than extinct

Doug Miller's "My Turn" (June 18) gives a list of "Christian" scientists. The only modern scientist on the list is Albert Einstein. I believe Dr. Einstein would be astounded to find himself on this list considering he was Jewish.

Mr. Miller also lists Galileo, a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for daring to say the Earth was not the center of the universe. He was forced to recant and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. He was not exonerated by the church until 1992. Copernicus, also on the list, was so afraid of the church he waited to publish until he was on his deathbed.

This being said I don't believe religious faith and science are mutually exclusive. However, when religious doctrine directly contradicts known scientific fact, a problem arises. Einstein was a deeply religious man but he defined God as being the harmony of the universe, not the God described in the Bible.

Mr. Miller goes on to speak of a vast green conspiracy which is undermining the U.S. economy. He claims the theory of AGW is a fraud perpetrated by the green faction. He says there is absolutely no scientific evidence that AGW exists. This news would undoubtedly surprise the scientists at NOAA and NASA not to mention the vast majority of researchers in the field. If a conspiracy is afoot it's coming from the deniers. Time after time when "proof" against AGW comes out it comes from scientists who are in the pocket of the big oil and coal companies.

God made us the stewards of this planet and we're doing a lousy job of it. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return. The preponderance of the evidence indicates that the planet is heating up, the weather is increasingly dramatic and it's our fault. If we make the changes necessary to protect the Earth and the multitude of scientists who say AGW is real are wrong we've still made the world a better place for all the generations to come. If you don't believe in Global Warming stop for a second and consider that if you're wrong and we continue with the status quo there will be no future generations. We will die out and our demise will be by our own hands.

JANELLE BOURGET

Coeur d'Alene