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Before the deluge

From Brett Hellinga, Springfield, IL:

You will no doubt be deluged with emails from people trying to challenge your advocacy on behalf of "An Inconvenient Truth." So let me try to be succinct and hope this email precedes the deluge.

You no doubt consider yourself a learned, inquisitive man, so you should be willing to at least entertain there is another point of view on global warming. As Michael Crichton has said, "Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had."

[Link provided for full, interesting speech: ]

Since you are so committed to your views on global warming, I won't even pretend I can budge you. But simple searches on the Internet can at least lead you to the following news.

(1) There is a claim that polar ice caps on Mars are melting.

(2) There is a claim that Jupiter is experiencing increased planetary storm activity.

(3) There is a claim that the Sun has had an increase in solar activity over the past two decades, coinciding with increased temperatures on Earth [see (1) and (2) for related effects.]

(4) It is widely acknowledged that the Earth's temperature has long experienced great shifts in its climate over the years without regard to mankind (Easy examples: the Ice Age, the arrival AND the thawing; plus, recent news that scientists now believe the Arctic was once tropical).

(5) As recently as the 1970s, climatologists claimed the Earth was experiencing another Ice Age. Now, the same profession projects a global warming disaster.

Of course, none of these claims inherently disprove the fact that global warming caused by manmade gases could ALSO be very real. But I would assume a professional wordsmith such as yourself would recognize the danger of a starting a "debate" with the supposition with the implied claim that all the smart, caring and uncorrupt people hold my point of view, but an alternative claim is . . .

I conclude with a link to two articles written by a climatologists with a swell resumes who poses some questions to the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and its proponents . . . Unless, of course, it would be easier to dismiss them as a pseudo-scientists, in which case there's no point to critical thinking in the first place . . .

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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