To the editor:

It’s disturbing to read syndicated columns based on specious reasoning, especially considering that some readers may accept the falsehoods as truth. Case in point: Marc Thiessen’s “Climate reparations are insanity; they will hurt poor nations most,” in the Nov. 29 Journal-World.

The column contains too many questionable statements to address in 250 words; but basically, Thiessen’s application of the term “insanity” is grossly misplaced. He opines that the international decision made at the recent U.N. Climate Change Conference, COP27, for wealthy nations “to pay poor nations reparations for costs of natural disasters supposedly [sic] caused by the industrialized world’s use of fossil fuels” is “insanity.” Actually, this would be fact-based justice — though it may never happen. One fact Thiessen gets partially right is that poverty plays a huge role in the disproportionate damage suffered by poor nations from disasters. The bulwark of poverty — mainly unjust government, including selfish rule by the privileged — is shamefully rampant internationally and woefully needs change. But Thiessen seems to think that prosperity can come to poor nations only through encouraged use of fossil fuels — which, of course, means simply enhancing global warming and its deleterious effects already plaguing the poorer nations. Isn’t “insanity” the conscious repetition of the same actions while expecting different results? Help for poorer nations to develop sustainably would be wiser. Global climate disruption caused by our burning of fossil fuels threatens to unravel the balance of nature that makes possible human life on Earth. To ignore this fact is the real insanity.

Nancy Hanson,

Lawrence