To the Editor:
I was quite impressed by Craig Elliott’s letter (3/28/13) in response to my letter a week earlier on global warming. He created a masterful list of popular culture fads – none of which have anything to do with climate change – or with any policy issue, for that matter.
Quite remarkably, he manages to conclude that my lengthy discourse was gobble-de-gook, apparently without understanding anything that I wrote. I congratulate him on his perspicacity in concluding, without citing a single fact, scientific or otherwise, that concern over the phenomenon of global warming “too shall pass.”
In my letter I attempted to describe how an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning leads to warming of the atmosphere. Since I was disputing the assertion of a previous writer about the role of water vapor as a greenhouse gas, some detailed explanation was in order.
I do apologize to Mr. Elliott for writing a letter too long and with too many facts for him to deal with. Maybe the brevity of this response will make up for that.
If he does not want to waste his time doing the research, perhaps he should rely on those, such as specialists in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who are actually collecting and publishing facts from the field. At the very least, he could read the book recommended by Walt Johansson [3/28/13] “Global Weirdness.”
I would welcome his identifying “just as many scientists pooh-poohing global warming,” provided they are climate scientists qualified by publishing peer-reviewed research articles in scientific publications.
