Letter to the Editor to the New Zealand Listener

Dear Editor:

The article by Dave Hansford on “climate-change deniers” (“Some like it hot,” March 22) is unconscionably bad. He ought to be ashamed for having written it, and you for having published it.

To claim without evidence that “in truth, climate scientists were in remarkable agreement that humans were responsible for rising temperatures” is to ignore the preponderance of evidence. Can he point to a single survey of scientists that supports his claim? No. Several reliable surveys directly contract it.

To call scientists and others who disagree with Al Gore and the IPCC “climate-change deniers” is to descend to the lowest levels of name-calling and insult. To say global warming skeptics (a more accurate label) “rarely lock horns in strictly academic bullrings” is to ignore hundreds of articles published in peer-reviewed journals -- some of them cited in “Unstoppable Global Warming - Every 1,500 Years,” by S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery - and also the fact that skeptics are not invited to present at events organized by the intensely politicized alarmists who dominate the debate.

He reports ExxonMobil’s giving to conservative groups, including my organization, The Heartland Institute, between 1998 and 2005. He refuses to report what percentage of the total income of the conservative movement, or Heartland in particular, this amounted to. For Heartland, it was never more than 5% of the organization’s annual budget. I’m sure it was far less than 5% of the entire movement’s income during this time.

If funding dictates an organization’s views on global warming, then why aren’t conservative groups 95% in the alarmist camp? In fact, the accusation is simply a smear aimed at the most ill-informed readers, an example of propaganda unbefitting a journalist.

I don’t know how writers like Dave Hansford sleep at night. If he has even a shred of personal integrity, he should apologize for his attacks on the growing number of scientists who say the threat of global warming has been over-sold, and promise to never again write on this subject. And his publisher should accept nothing less.

Joe

Joseph Bast

President

The Heartland Institute

jbast@heartland.org