This letter is in reference to (OGJ, June 18, 2001, p. 19, and OGJ Apr. 9, 2001, p. 17) editorials and various other articles.
The 1,700 climate scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are nearly unanimous in their statements urging our action to mitigate global warming. Instead of taking their advice, the Journal appears to have taken the advice of only 5 scientists who have received payment for their opinions from the coal and oil industries. This sounds very self-serving and unscientific to me.
The companies you represent are all owned, run, and operated by people. Neither these people nor their families will be able to escape from the climate change problems which we are beginning to observe and which portend to become much worse. These include the disruption to agriculture (because all agriculture is based on the old climate), more-extreme heat waves, floods, droughts, and a worldwide flood of refugees created both by climate change and rising oceans.
It seems to me you do your people a great disservice by not encouraging them to move with the times, in their own self-interest.
Oil is certainly a nonrenewable resource. It will run out sooner or later. However, these companies are energy companies, not just oil companies. They will continue to prosper by moving to energy resources and technologies of the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, if they continue to hug the technologies of the nineteenth century, they will be left behind like the makers of buggy-whips.
Thomas S. Dickerman
Engineering Consultant
Daly City, Calif.
