Today - a letter to the New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Growing Clamor About Inequities of Climate Crisis” (front page, Nov. 17):

In recent years, after other extreme weather events like Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms ever recorded, scientists are always asked, “Has climate change caused this?” And the answer is generally some variation of “perhaps, but we can’t be certain.” The right answer, but the wrong question.

In a medical emergency, no physician ever waits for absolute proof of diagnosis before starting treatment, for to do so is to run the risk that the patient will become seriously, and perhaps irreversibly, ill, and may die. The greater the emergency, the more physicians rely on an accumulated body of evidence, on recognized patterns of disease.

While we depend on scientists to help us understand the causes and effects of climate change, it is a tragic, fundamental mistake to expect them, before we decide to act, to prove that each extreme weather event is a result of our greenhouse gas emissions. We must learn from the practice of medicine to recognize the accumulating signs and symptoms of climate change as it unfolds before our eyes, and to act before it is too late.

ERIC CHIVIAN
Boston, Nov. 19, 2013



The writer, a physician, is the founder and former director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University.