EDITOR,

In his Saturday column, “Global warming is here,” Mickey McGuire has once again ventured into the arena of ideas ill-equipped for the task he undertakes. His attempt to buttress the sagging argument for man-made global warming falls short of the mark.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that he refers to hasn’t even been released yet. What has been released is the summary of that report. While the report is signed by the scientists who worked on it, the summary is strictly a political document created by United Nations bureaucrats.

His quote from Jay Lawrimore illustrates the weakness of his argument. It refers to a “broad scientific consensus” that increases in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels is producing climate change. Unfortunately, science is not about consensus. Consensus is a purely political consideration. In reaching a scientific conclusion, one does not have the luxury of ignoring contrary experimental results.

Not only do contrary results demand explanation, they also provide the opportunity to re-evaluate the underlying premise of the hypothesis being tested.

Pivoting at this point, McGuire refers to “global warming deniers.” This is clearly an attempt to link skeptics of man-made global warming with those who deny the existence of the Holocaust. It is also evidence that he is aware of the weakness of his argument.

However substantial the evidence for “our contribution to global warming” may be, there are also substantial shortcomings with it. To ignore those shortcomings in the name of advancing an ill-advised political agenda would not serve “our grandchildren” well, either.

Steve Hall, Tracy