Letters
Views on Climate Change Diminish U of G's Reputation at Home and Abroad
When I clicked on the recent campus news headline “Prof to Present Climate Change Report in England,” my heart sank when I saw it was Prof. Ross McKitrick, Economics. In my view, this purported “expert” on climate change does nothing but diminish the reputation of the University of Guelph both at home and abroad.
Despite the fact that less than 10 per cent of world scientists are still skeptical about climate change and the vast majority are onside, McKitrick continues to receive media attention with his outlandish views.
I realize that freedom of speech is an integral part of our society and certainly a large part of the intellectual freedom accorded university professors, but I really wish he would take himself off to the physical structure of his “alma mater,” the Fraser Institute, where his views could be taken within the context of that organization. I certainly hope that when he presented in England, he made it quite clear that he was not speaking on behalf of the University of Guelph.
Maggie Laidlaw, Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences
Denying Climate Change and Role of Human Interference is Irresponsible
I was deeply concerned when I discovered that the U of G website recently featured a news release about Prof. Ross McKitrick, Economics, making a presentation on climate change in London, England. Along with other climate-change deniers, he promotes the views of those who have contributed enormously to the climate destabilization that human civilization must now face.
One of the authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report noted that it would be irresponsible to deny that climate change is happening and that it is caused by human interference. In my view, the role that McKitrick and others like him play in this tragedy is, like the apologists for the tobacco companies, to endlessly leverage their position to create enough doubt in the minds of politicians and citizens that protective measures are stalled for years, if not decades.
The University of Guelph would not promote the work of one of its professors who denied the Holocaust, and it should certainly not promote the so-called “independent” summary of one of its professors who denies the environmental holocaust that will be visited on current and future generations by human mismanagement. By doing so, it joins the ranks of the irresponsible.
Jennifer Sumner, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development
At Guelph welcomes letters to the editor. They should be limited to 500 words and submitted electronically to Barbara Chance at b.chance@exec.uoguelph.ca.