Unscientific San Francisco Chronicle

John Diaz’s article “Truth and Denial” (Insight, page E3, San Francisco Chronicle, February 26, 2012) was remarkable for its lack of science in a supposedly scientific editorial. Diaz made a perfunctory denunciation of the fraud (and probable forgery) perpetrated by “Scientist” Peter Gleick on The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Chicago.

In his article Mr. Diaz lightly condemned Gleick while trying and convicting The Heartland Institute and man-caused global warming skeptics of crimes against humanity. According to Mr. Diaz: "The scientific consensus that human activity is accelerating global warming is solid; the only real debate is about the magnitude and timing of the consequences. Its effects are already apparent. Melting glaciers and ice caps. Sea-level rise. Severe storms and drought. Devastated crops."

The fact that global warming is not accelerating, and that numerous reputable and respected scientists deny its consequences did not enter into Mr. Diaz's labeling of skeptics as "deniers", furthering the ongoing effort to establish and maintain an odious link with Holocaust deniers. Mr. Diaz obviously is unaware that glaciers have been retreating for over 300 years since the end of the Little Ice Age. In Glacier Bay, Alaska, retreat was over 50 miles from 1780 to 1912, and only six miles since. Sea level rise has decelerated, according to Europe's new sophisticated satellite system, and is trending at about six inches per century or less, the same as the two previous centuries. The alarmist forecast for the San Francisco Bay Area of six feet by 2100 would equal the highest rate of increase per century experienced at the end of the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, when there was vast quantities of ice to melt and global temperature was much higher than today. Concerning severe storms and drought, and devastated crops, even dedicated "warmist" scientists deny linkages, and respected neutral scientists such as the Doctors Pielke, Senior and Junior, dismiss it entirely.

Mr. Diaz also assumes with no evidence that skeptics are well funded, but if he had chosen to read the fraudulently acquired Heartland Institute budget, and compared it to warmist organization budgets - Sierra Club, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Federation, etc. - he would be confronted by the facts that the Heartland Institute budget is only a small fraction of the budgets of any one of these organizations, that only a small portion of Heartland's budget was applied to climate change, and that Big Oil provides far more money to warmists than to skeptics.

Mr. Diaz, I can easily substantiate skeptic science positions by inquiring government, not skeptic, sources. Mr. Diaz, it seems you and many other "reporters" have lost your nose for news when it comes to natural climate change.