I found Donnie Johnston's April 20 column about climate change ill-researched.

Even the headline ["Prehistoric weather statistics are hard to track down"] is incorrect: Prehistoric weather statistics are, in fact, easy to find and backed by solid scientific evidence.

Mr. Johnston stated he could find weather statistics for the U.S. beginning in the 1870s, but much more data exists than this. Perhaps he simply didn't know where to look.

One of the many ways that scientists determine prehistoric climate is by analyzing concentrations of gas bubbles found in polar ice. Ice cores are drilled hundreds of feet deep and analyzed in some of the most prestigious labs around the world.

Results show that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have varied over the past 400,000 years, but every time they increase substantially, so does temperature. The last 1,000 years show a stable rate until about the 1850s, the time of the Industrial Revolution. Since then, CO2 concentrations have risen exponentially and show no sign of slowing down.

Perhaps the timing is just a coincidence, but however you want to look at it, the values are off the chart. Climate change is happening whether you want to believe it or not.

Convention has also been that we can take and use what we please without consequence, but people may look back on our generation and shake their heads. The information is all here in front of us. What to do with it determines the quality of life for future generations.

Until you actually take the time to educate yourself about the issue, please refrain from spewing fallacies that you yourself seem to have found floating around on the Internet.

Kelly Farrell

Stafford