TO THE EDITOR:

I'd like to respond to the article of April 11, 2007 by Patrick Tepoorten about Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth." I would agree with some of Mr. Tepoorten's comments. However, he has failed to realize that, irrespective of the dramatics, there are great truths in Mr. Gore's statements. Let me illustrate some of them.

First of all, there is a vast difference between weather and climate. A change in climate, for example, will have vast effects on changes in the weather. And that is already happening. For example, in 2005 there were so many hurricanes in the Atlantic and Caribbean that we ran out of English letters and had to go to Greek letters to identify all of them. Last year, the Carribean was relatively calm. But, what most of us in the United States failed to realize was that they had the most destructive Typhoons in history in the Pacific. Climate Change will cause such seemingly unrelated storms. They are due to the Atlantic and Pacific Oscillations (current changes). They haven't been this way since we started to map the oceans.

The plight of polar bears may not have been clear in the movie. It's the huge, lengthy swims they must take to reach the waters in which they must hunt seals to survive. Instead of 60 miles, these swims are now 200 miles or more. If they get there, they are far too tired to do any hunting; hence they starve as do their cubs. Why is this the case? The Arctic ice, as well as the Greenland icecap, is melting. This melting is clearly shown in satellite photos. We also have similar evidence of melting of the Antarctic glaciers.

Rather than continue with individual cases, let me just cite the recent statements of the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change). This panel is composed of 3,000 scientists, government representatives, mathematicians, etc. They look at all the data—for and against global warming. In February, 2007, they released a statement stating that they are 90 percent certain that global warming is caused by human intervention and that there will be repercussions for humanity. These repercussions were detailed and clarified just a few weeks ago and will be published in the next few weeks. This international group has even been recognized by President Bush who has advised U.S. citizens that we must take note and act.

While I can understand how upsetting it is for Mr. Tepoorten to hear all this "bad" news,

I must say that I would prefer to see him on the side of the "Yea-sayers," rather than the "Nay-sayers." We need his type of devotion. All I can say to him is contained in the words of Chief Seattle: "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."

Let's all get together and make sure we pass on something better than we have right now!

Bob Genovese
Member of Global Warming Action Team for Archdiocese of Mpls and St. Paul