Having been a friend, fellow pilot and admirer of Richard Grossman for many years and, as I am a climate change skeptic if not outright denier, I was interested in the article headlined “We’ve all lost” (Herald, Dec. 24). In this case, though, I think Grossman is wrong and I disagree with the Herald’s slant.
Roger Cohen and Grossman chose the HadCRUT3 temperature record to decide their bet, but that source was the subject of scandal as baseline temperature data was manipulated and adjusted, in part to “hide the decline” in temperatures characterized by the “Little Ice Age.” It went out of business because it was not credible or trustworthy.
Similarly, the Herald cites the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as showing an increase in global temperature from 2005 to 2014 from 58.19 F to 58.35 F. NOAA also “adjusts” the temperature record from thousands of recording stations, which leads to this kind of misleading information and then they refuse to provide Congress with the base temperature data and explanations as to why data was adjusted.
Some 30 years ago, when NASA’s James Hanson testified before Congress that the world was doomed to overheat because of carbon dioxide emissions, everybody paid attention and gave due consideration to this, now seen by many as a ridiculous assertion. Cohen was right in giving it a thoughtful review and then rejecting it.
What prediction of disaster made by Hansen, Gore, Mann, et al., has come true? None. Zippo. Nada. Polar bears are thriving. The polar ice caps, both of them, are robust. Islands are not being inundated. Temperatures are comfortable, and Cohen is absolutely right when he says that there has been a worldwide increase in plant life. The fact is that the standard of living of some of the world’s poorest of the poor has risen because of increased vegetation to feed themselves and their animals, driven by slightly higher temperatures and, most of all, increased carbon dioxide to build that biomass through photosynthesis.
George Thompson
Durango
