Who will you believe — Cal or your lying eyes?

Who will you believe —
Cal or your lying eyes?

EDITOR:

In his December 27 column headlined “Global warming ‘cultists’ do a disservice” Cal Thomas says that the “secular fundamentalists” who believe that global warming is fact, not fallacy, are preaching “gloom, doom and retreat.”

He calls on them to debate the issue. “If they won’t,” he writes, “we can only conclude that they are spewing hot air.”

Given the vast amount of evidence that global warming is very much upon us, one has to wonder if those, like Mr. Thomas, who attempt to cast doubt on its onset, actually live one the same planet as the rest of us. Mr. Thomas’ call for further debate on the issue reminds one of the flat-Earth zealots of the pre-Columbus era or even of Amajinadad’s stand on the Holocaust. Right-wing politics only takes you so far.

So on one side of the debate there are the naysayers like Mr. Thomas and the person he quotes for support in his column, Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe, as well as a small coterie of scientists, some of whom have ties to the oil industry. On the other side are Al Gore, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and an Academy Award for his documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and the runner-up as Time magazine’s person of the year. He is supported by the vast majority of the earth’s scientists, including Nobel laureates.

The Arctic of course is the bellwether region when it comes to global warming. “The north polar ice cap, according to the best scientists in the world.” notes Gore in his Time interview, “fell off a cliff this fall.”

However, one doesn’t have to go to the polar regions to find proof of global warming, and one wonders if Mr. Thomas ever bothered to look for such evidence in his own corner of our fragile, spinning blue marble.

To cite one example close to home, when is the last time there was ice skating on lakes Newport and Glacier in Mill Creek Park? In the 1970s, sections of both lakes were routinely cleared of snow for skating, and the park kept log fires burning there to warm the skaters. Today, one would be foolish to venture out on the ice at either of the two small park lakes.

I spent the winter of 1963 in Sandusky. The ice on the bay there then was three feet thick, and there were windrows of ice out in Lake Erie 13 feet thick. Travel over the ice out to the Bass Islands in modified pickup trucks was common in those days (the trails were marked with old Christmas trees), and excellent ice fishing drew many out onto the ice around the islands.

Such past local winter activities must now be history, given the huge amount of open water Lake Erie has had in our recent mild winters.

It is people like Cal Thomas who are doing the “disservice” in questioning the validity of global warming when the “jury” in the form of scientific proof cited in Gore’s documentary has long since returned its verdict and outlined the dire consequences unless drastic measures are taken.

The native people of the North, as well as the walrus and polar bears, realize that their world (and ours) is undergoing fundamental change. How long will it take for Mr. Thomas and his head-in-sand crowd to come to a similar conclusion?

ROBERT R. STANGER

Boardman

Kudos to all the choirs

EDITOR:

I want to say, that I really enjoyed Voices of Our Valley that occurred during this holiday season. All the choirs, especially Boardman High School’s, were excellent in their singing and dance routines.

It is my prayer that each one of those young people achieve their dreams and goals. They all made me proud and I regained the holiday spirit. Thanks so much.

CHARLES ELLIS

Youngstown