Mr. Mayes has once again pushed out his doctrine that environmental changes are doubtful as revealed by his “balanced” reading (MP responds, Dec. 18). There are two problems here.
The first is, he does not provide his references for this “balance” to be checked out. There are a number of websites are on the net funded by U.S. billionaires who spend enormous amounts in order to support their fundamentalist right wing agenda. There are corporate supported websites with scientists of some degree – but not necessarily climate scientists – who are shills for the corporate world in denouncing global warming.
The second problem is the nature of “balanced” information. A balance between a qualified scientist and some corporate shill with perhaps nothing better than a business degree is hardly a balance.
Weight, credence, needs to be given to scientific data supported by the clear majority of climate scientists over some shill paid for by some corporation.
The majority of scientists involved with actually studying the climate clearly support the data that indicates the weather is changing due to human influence.
Perhaps Mr. Mayes needs more qualified reading, such as the U.S. space administration: “NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) shows that November 2013 was the hottest since record keeping began in 1880 despite strong La Nina conditions, which tend to hold temperatures down,” or this Colorado university professor: (Gifford H. Miller, PhD (University of Colorado – Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research) co-author, Unprecedented Recent Summer Warmth in Arctic Canada, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 40, Issue 21, Nov. 16, 2013.) or this : Natalia Shakhova, PhD (University of Alaska – International Arctic Research Center) et al, Ebullition and Storm-Induced Methane Release from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, Nature Geoscience, Nov. 24, 2013.
Or this from the U.S. National Climate Data Center: “Averaging the globe as a whole, the temperature across the land and ocean surfaces combined during October 2013 was 1.13 degrees F above the 1901-2000 average… (the) 344th consecutive month with global temperature above the 20th century average… the last below-average global temperature for any month was February 1985.”
I could go on, but space is limited. Mr. Mayes, balance in reading may be fair, but science carries much more weight than corporate intertests advocating against knowledge and against science as the Harper government is inclined to do.
Jim Miles
Vernon
