Sorry for the extended absence. The solar industry is growing rapidly, as is groSolar. We are currently undertaking an additional capital raise to further accelerate our growth, and that is consuming what extra bandwidth I had for writing. If it’s any consolation, I think about writing here often, and sincerely appreciate those who have sent me kind notes of encouragement. I will try to write more often Mom…

The following is a letter I’ve just sent to our local paper, the Valley News. While it’s specific to that paper, it also highlights a continuing and growing problem in our press today. That is the reporting of “balance” rather than “truth and opinion”. Too often today we see opinion framed in the same manner as fact. Using quotes from non-peer reviewed magazines, misstatements about what scientists are saying, and purposely misusing terms to further confuse the subject has become standard fare in the media today. Unfortunately, the problem goes well beyond global warming, and has infected all discourse today. (And yes, I’m going to blame the neo-conservatives more than the “liberals”. One fault, if you will, of liberals is that we tend to listen to other views. Even when we may have our mind made up, we allow others to hold their opinions. Frankly, I do not see that in the neo-conservative side of the media.) The motivation to write this letter came from an editorial cartoon which sows confusion over the difference between climate change and current local weather.

But global warming is the central issue here. While our government may go down in flames if we cannot arrest the decay and subversion currently underway, it is our world that will go down in flames if we cannot arrest global warming. While I desire neither, while I work to avoid both, clearly global warming represents a larger problem, and not one that can be “fixed later”.

Here is the text of my letter, which hopefully will be published this week. I’ve added in a web link to the offending editorial cartoon.

“It concerns and confuses me that the Valley News is still running editorial cartoons that lampoon the concept of global warming. It concerns me because global warming is real, and we have a very limited amount of time to start acting very seriously to limit the effects. Cartoons like the one in Friday’s paper (by Glenn McCoy, http://www.gocomics.com/glennmccoy/2007/07/10/, added reference for Blog) encourage people to not take global warming seriously, and to doubt the conclusions of one of the largest scientific research efforts ever undertaken.

I am confused because I do not know why the Valley News published the cartoon. Was it out of some warped sense of “fair and balanced” or because the editorial staff actually has doubts, or because they found it humorous and think that everyone understands the reality of global warming. (I wish that was true.) “Fair and balanced” does not mean that opinion can be set against fact. While we still have much to learn about climate dynamics and the speed and severity of climate change, there is NO doubt in the broad scientific community that global warming is real, and is largely caused by the actions of people. Yes, there are individual scientists who do not believe that global warming is real. There are also individual scientists who believe the earth is flat, and that aliens inhabit among us. But peer-reviewed science, the kind that gets published in the name-brand science journals (“Science”, “Nature”, etc.) has 100% agreement that global warming is real and that we are causing it. When you trace back the funding for the skeptics, an amazing number turn out to be funded by the oil companies.”

So I hope that the Valley News can present factual news on global warming. It is the most pressing issue of our time, and needs constructive action taken, not misinformation given.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Climate Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.