To the editor:

In his recent letter to the editor, Jed Dukett relies on Dr. John Clauser, who won a Nobel Prize, to reinforce his claim that CO2 is not a pollutant and that there is no climate emergency. What Mr. Dukett ignores is that Dr. Clauser’s views stand in stark contrast to the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists and major scientific organizations worldwide. While Dr. Clauser is an accomplished physicist and did indeed win a Nobel Prize for his work on quantum mechanics, his expertise is not in climate science or atmospheric physics. The vast majority of climate scientists — over 99% according to multiple studies — agree that human-caused climate change is real and poses significant risks.

Major scientific organizations including NASA, NOAA, the IPCC and national science academies worldwide have extensively documented the role of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in climate change through decades of peer-reviewed research, atmospheric measurements and climate modeling. Mr. Dukett seems enamored with CO2 and there is no argument that it has an essential role in the earth’s atmosphere. The problem, and why CO2 has been classified as a pollutant, is the amount of CO2 that has accumulated in the atmosphere. Before the industrial revolution, atmospheric levels of CO2 stood at about 250 parts per million. Today, thanks to unrelenting emissions from burning fossil fuels since the middle of the last century, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is well over 400 ppm and rising. Thanks to Mr. Dukett and his work on documenting the impact of acid rain on our waterways, our Adirondack lakes and streams are much healthier today than they were 50 years ago. Unfortunately, the battle against the buildup of CO2 and other climate warming gases has been far less successful, in part, because of the propaganda being peddled by climate deniers.

Joe Martens

Former Commissioner,

NYS Department of Environmental Conservation