Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Last week, a writer indicated surprise that I agreed with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s position that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is causing global warming (“Climate change a tool to redistribute wealth,” DeWitt Edwards, Dec. 19 Readers Write).

The “Panel” consists of thousands of scientists that voluntarily contributed to the 2,000-plus page report on climate science that was released in late September. This is the fifth such report with the fourth being released in 2007; all reports have been increasingly positive that man-made carbon dioxide is causing global warming. The current level of confidence is comparable to scientists’ belief that tobacco can cause cancer.

In 1896, a paper by Svante Arrhenius was published in Britain documenting his work showing that if human emissions of CO2 doubled from the then-current 287 ppm in the atmosphere to 574 ppm the...