Sounding Off: - Los Angeles Times
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Sounding Off:

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For a front-page article, Brianna Bailey’s article on sea levels (“As sea level rises, unease follows,†Feb. 6) was being way too politically correct when she started the article with “Whether or not climate change is to blame....â€

She does not dispute that the sea level is rising and neither does anyone else — it is being measured all the time. Some parts of the world are already being flooded. To beg the question of whether climate change is to blame is too P.C. Of course it is to blame!

There is no other source for sea level rise than the melting of ice that has been storing water for thousands of years. Where else could all that water could come from to raise sea levels worldwide? We haven’t been hit by an icy comet in a very long time.

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Even most of the people who still question that humans have anything to do with global warming do acknowledge that the Earth is heating up, glaciers are melting and the sea is rising. A very cold winter or cool summer here and there only confirms what climatologists have been saying for years; “as the climate grows warmer there will be bigger swings between hot and cold, drought and rain, in various locations, as ocean currents and wind patterns change.â€

Glaciers are melting at an increasing rate all over the Earth, except in those few places where it is still cold enough for them to still be growing.

Some people use the fact that some glaciers are still growing to ignore the elephant in the room.

It’s the ratio between the amount of ice that is melting to the amount of ice that is still freezing that tells the story (duh). That is all that matters.

Only the few glaciers that are at high enough altitudes or latitudes are growing, while those many that are lower are receding.

So don’t be so P.C. A warming Earth is melting ice and melting ice is raising ocean levels.


FRANK COLVER lives in Newport Beach.

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