SMU sends word that David Meltzer, the university's anthropology chair, is among the 255 members of the National Academy Science not amused at all with those who've been trying to dismiss climate change as a ... what did D's Trey Garrison call it? Oh, right: "Man-Made Climate Change Hoax." To that end, Meltzer, along with UT Southwestern's David Russell (the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Chair in Molecular Genetics) and Nobel-winning Johann Deisenhofer (Virginia and Edward Linthicum Distinguished Chair in Biomolecular Science) have signed their names to a letter just published in Science in which they confront in no uncertain terms "climate change deniers [who] are typically driven by special interests or dogma."
An excerpt from the climactic conclusion:
We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.
