Public right to question pseudo-science

To the editor:

Alan Journet has launched another environmentalist tirade. He proceeds as if there were unanimity in the scientific community on global warming; ignoring over a hundred climate scientists who signed the 1996 Leipzig Declaration, which stated "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide." He further ignores the fact many scientists are pretty sure the earth was warmer 4,000 to 7,000 years ago than it is now. Actual temperatures have not cooperated with the computer models people like Journet hold dear.

The recent discovery of a Stone Age man in the Alps as the ice cover retreated was cited by environmentalists as proof of global warming. So how did he get there? Did he tunnel hundreds of feet into the ice field to find a nice cozy place to die? Or did he die and get covered by an advancing glacier caused by a cataclysmic cooling of the earth, which is just now returning to normal? The geologic record shows many advances and retreats of the ice caps. Perhaps Journet can explain what activity of man was responsible for these dramatic shifts.

Recent volcanic eruptions are estimated to have released more carbon and sulfur compounds, as well as solid particulate matter, into the atmosphere than man has since the dawn of the Industrial Age. So why is it that only when these same compounds are released by human activity that they are responsible for climatic change?

ROBERT A CRON

Advance, Mo.