Fred Grimm, The Miami Herald

July 17, 2008

Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: Hoaxes, Critical Inquiry, & Did Global Warming save us from Global Cooling? A longer look at your column today about fads and frauds.

Mr. Grimm,

There was an upward spike in temperature in Europe some 10 centuries ago. More land became arable. The better the people ate the smarter they became. Then came the Renaissance. Do you have a problem with Dante?

Science is not predicated on “consensus”. You posit a thesis. You produce an experiment. You publish your results. The results are challenged. Either your test can be replicated away form you or it can’t. Have you ever heard of the “scientific method” or “critical inquiry” or “reasoned discourse”?

You say there is s “90% certainty” that proponents of Global Warming are correct. 90% is a good grade in an Algebra exam. It is a bad grade in carrier landings. It is an unacceptable grade in Science. Have you ever wondered why, after more than 150 years, Darwin’s Theory is still a theory? Personally, I believe that man descended from the bears. Since I don’t have an ape in that fight I’ll sit on the sidelines.

Wasn’t there a “90%” consensus in 1970 that Global Cooling was going to do us all in before the millennium? Has anybody found out what happened there? You may wish to ask Paul Ehrlich – remember him? - what happened to his “consensus”

Speaking of man influencing climate…

How did Greenland come to be known as Greenland?

In New England 1816 was known as the “Year Summer Never Came”. How did that happen?

One Herald Plaza is on Biscayne Bay. If the polar bears are drowning [Incidentally, drowning polar bears is a good thing if you love baby seals] because of melting ice bergs would you please walk outside and tell me how far the water has risen. It has to go somewhere.

If you believe CO2 is bad, an assumption that requires a willing disbelief in the obvious miraculous benefits of photosynthesis, I suggest that you hold your breathe until, as you suggest, “hell freezes over”.

When that tragic day comes – I say tragic because we both know that the lashes from it will fall disproportionately on women of color who are single mothers – the last thing I will do is to fling your dumb ass into the cauldron of my carbon foot print be damned electricity network. You should be enough to give us one more gloriously air conditioned night before we return to hunter/gatherer status

PS – Since 1997 I have been asking the big bosses who run the Herald to put down a marker, to set a standard, to challenge us to do something about the climate by shutting off all the air conditioners at world HQ. Are they on? If they are how can you still take a pay check?