Editor,
I felt that I needed to respond to Rick Place’s letter to the editor published in the March 19 edition of Current in Carmel. First of all, I agree with him that using derogatory terms is not useful to make a point, especially when it is clear that very smart people are not convinced about the reasons behind climate change. I do however want to make a point that people should evaluate and responsibly select where the information they get comes from.
If someone’s car starts making a noise, we can always ask friends for their opinion. There will likely be some that would say that the noise is nothing and not to waste money going to the mechanic shop and that there is an engine additive or something that would fix the problem. Ultimately, most people would choose to get an expert’s opinion at the shop that will perform tests to find out the root cause of the problem.
Just the same, if someone suddenly has a pain in the chest with no explanation, there is plenty of advice online about natural remedies that would fix the problem, saving a lot of money in doctor expenses. Most of us would choose to get an expert’s opinion at a doctor’s office or ER where a series of tests would be performed to get data on the possible cause of the problem.
I firmly believe that we somehow miss the point in regard to the climate issues we are having. The majority of the experts have advised that human activity is likely affecting it, but we unfortunately get different opinions through social media, the news or politicians that don’t necessarily have any expertise on the area.
I think that the city, as pointed out by him, needs to hear from the people, but we the people should fulfill our obligation of selecting the appropriate sources of information. Also, in the end, the city should put more weight on what the experts in the area say when making the decisions on what the city has to do.
Armando Hernandez, Carmel
