I would like to respond to the May 23 letter from Dan Monger about scientific data and climate change. Mr. Monger has taken a small incident and used it to condemn all climate change research. This is faulty logic.
In 2009, someone hacked a university server and stole more than 1,000 emails and 2,000 documents. From these, statements were taken out of context in an attempt to show that climate change data was/is a hoax. This “climategate” issue has then been repeated by the deniers in a megaphone effect in order to refute the overwhelming evidence of climate change.
The Scientific community has called the Climategate episode a smear campaign, and has regularly provided additional data showing that the threat of climate change is real.
Scientist look at the data and draw conclusions. Political ideologues look to science in order to poke holes in matters they don’t like, or to find claims that support their ideology. The worst sin is to take one incident and use it to demonize all of science.
We, the non-scientists, do not even need data to see that something is wrong: Visual images of Antarctic ice shelves collapsing, rising oceans flooding Miami, pictures of the Artic nearly ice-free, larger and more frequent storms, wildfires, moose dying because the ticks have moved farther north, etc.
None of these realities are based on stolen emails. What does Mr. Monger think is happening?
I would argue that the deniers (because they have been doing this for at least two decades) have done a serious disservice to our country and our world. If, by taking no action on emissions, the permafrost thaws (because of already warming temperatures) and huge amounts of methane are released, matters will get much worse.
Van Talmage
Lincoln