How grave is climate change?

Given the momentous danger of climate change, the Monitor's coverage of it is very welcome, as is CEO Anderson's summary of "green" actions that APA is taking to reduce its carbon footprint.

Going further, all psychologists should try to spend a portion of their professional time and effort on combating this supreme world problem—through research, teaching, practice and political activism. As APA President Kazdin points out, global climate change is greatly affected by human behavior, and as such, psychologists have a major role to play in combating it.

Stuart Oskamp, PhD
Claremont, Calif.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, by the special section on "Curbing Climate Change" in the March Monitor. As scientists, it would be nice if we could refrain from perpetuating the popular global warming hysteria and stick with what the science shows. Hyperbolic language such as "the planet's future hangs in the balance" is not helpful and not supported by the science. Dr. Norman Anderson's column began with the claim that "global climate change may be the greatest challenge that human civilization has faced." Given the fact that the global climate has constantly been changing throughout human history, independent of the actions of humans, this is a hard claim to believe.

Psychologists have a lot to offer in leading behavior change. Wouldn't it be better to focus on changing behavior that clearly leads to real harm (e.g., actual pollution), rather than prematurely pushing for changes that may do more harm than good?

Jeff W. Johnson, PhD
Minneapolis

Equal and unequal temperament

In your "Science Watch" article on music dissonance (April Monitor), I was surprised that the discussion about perceptions of consonance and dissonance across time and cultures made no mention of equal and unequal temperament tuning of instruments.

The Western world has become accustomed to equally tempered pianos only in the last 100 years or so.

Although useful for allowing any key to be played, equal temperament shaves true intervals and really, itself, is not purely consonant.

Renaissance music used pure fourths and fifths (so it does sound better) instead of the anemic intervals bound to a tempered keyboard. There is a great history here of different proposals for how to temper keyboards so they would not need to be retuned for pieces in unrelated keys.

Darcia Narvaez, PhD
South Bend, Ind.

Prescribing psychologists

The range of practice settings that have incorporated prescriptive psychology as described in the February Monitor did not mention their inclusion as full-time subspecialists on the staff of medical hospitals. Partially in response to an abiding shortage of psychiatrists in New Orleans, the first prescriptive (medical) psychologist in New Orleans joined the staff of Children's Hospital in 2006. This position was rapidly embraced by primary-care physicians in the community, and the prescribing psychologist wrote more than 2,000 prescriptions in the first year. The success of that decision has led to the hiring of two additional medical psychologists.

Douglas S. Faust, PhD
John Courtney, PsyD
New Orleans

Professional unity

I applaud APA President Alan Kazdin's call for unity in psychology in the March Monitor, but I am concerned that he is overlooking a very important challenge to psychology. It is not how psychology relates to experimental philosophy, but rather how does APA relate to and unify with the Association for Psychological Science that is critical. I can think of no other psychologist who is more respected by both researchers and clinicians than APA's current president. Please use this window of opportunity to help unify psychology.

Don Meichenbaum, PhD
Clearwater, Fla.

Correction

Roger Brooke's March letter mistakenly referred to Ken Wilbur as working with veterans in the 1960s. This should have been Harry Wilmer.