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Dear friends at AGR:

I write to you not only as a pacifist, universalist, prison activist, etc. but as an avid reader of your superlative paper and self-appointed cheerleader this side of the Georgia line. Permit me, then, to convey a viewpoint which may diverge from the “party line.” What I want to say is this. Being anti-war or anti-imperialist (read: globalization), or simple committed to the goals of the peace movement does NOT guarantee wholesale conformity to all views and pet theories espoused by the Left. I do not, for example, enjoy the sexualisms you seem to relish printing in the “Culture” section; and though Liberty is certainly the highest ideal, I am not so comfortable with those who push “freedom” to the point of license (as in “licentious”). But these issues (sexual explicitness, gay marriage, abortion, etc.) are not my reason for writing today. I am concerned instead with an environmental issue which AGR has represented, one which in fact began as opinion – mere surmise – and, thanks to good old Yankee media hype – has been elevated to the status of factual science.

I refer, of course, to “Global Warming.” So-called…

One can scarcely think of a climatological topic that has been so swiftly and thoroughly politicized. And invested, in the process, with emotional charge, such that if one dares utter a peep against the accuracy of this hypothesis, you run the risk of incurring the mighty wrath of “friends of the environment.”

But must it be so?

Is it wise to allow global warming so-called to become dogma – nay, a sacred cow – just because it presumably supports the green agenda?

As a cosmologist, I feel compelled to warn your readers that global cooling, not warming, is the norm. That no planet has ever been known to reverse, mid-career, the implacable trend toward a trifling temperature loss, and equally steady decrease in axial velocity. Worlds, in short, do not speed up or warm up – ever.

We must look instead to migration-of-the-poles (Oscillaic Motion) for the actual cause of climate change. And not be so easily gulled by carefully manipulated statistics which represent, after all, nothing but fluctuations.

If you still think global warming is worth “believing in” (for leverage in emissions control etc.), consider only the downside of this quixotic and pitiful sham: wasting millions on fruitless research, draconian rules (fearful of methane) shoving around rice paddy farmers, not to mention the real winner in this Chicken Little scenario – nuclear power, which puts out no “nasty” carbon, but generates extremely radioactive wastes.

Sure, people can and do pollute, toxify, and poison the environment in a thousand ways. But only Mother nature causes climate change. And it isn’t nice to fool (or gainsay) Mother Nature…

Susan Martinez, PhD.
Clayton, GA