GREEN: It's science, not politics

“Don’t report green side” (Coeur d’Alene Press letter to the editor, April 28) says the Green New Deal is “Democrat propaganda” and should not be included in news reports because it does not use “the true scientific method,” whatever that means. In fact, AGW is agreed on by every scientific body of national or international standing worldwide and by every climate scientist publishing in peer-reviewed science journals. Scientific consensus on AGW used to be 97 percent (National Academy of Sciences). It’s now 99.99 percent (National Physical Sciences Consortium).

The worldwide scientific community, consisting of thousands of the world’s top climate scientists, says we have only until 2030 to make at least 50 percent cuts in our greenhouse gas emissions if we hope to avoid “catastrophic” global warming which would cause “global economic collapse” followed by “societal collapse” (National Academy of Sciences).

The latest data we have shows that without a Green New Deal scale of rapid greenhouse gas emissions cuts, the costs to the U.S. economy will be more than $160 trillion (Forbes, April 2019). Previous projections of climate costs have been in the hundreds of trillions as well (IPCC). Just a half-degree increase in global temperature will cost the U.S. $13 trillion (National Academy of Sciences).

Opponents of the Green New Deal say it will cost $93 trillion, but that figure was simply made up by a right-wing “think tank.” The actual cost of the GND’s energy plan is estimated at $5 trillion (NYT, April 18), but it’s also estimated to add $6.5 trillion to our economy (IPCC) because scaling up solar and wind energy will make it “essentially free” by 2030 (Financial Times, UBS, August 2018).

PETE KUNTZ

Northglenn, Colo.