Saturday, August 19, 2006

Lex takes on MIT

David Gunter wrote a column in yeasterday's Ft. Wayne News Sentinal taking on Lex's view on global warming. Gunter is a chemical engineer and environmental scientist trained at MIT. He's also a lawyer. Gunter totally distorted what I wrote. Below is a fisking of Gunter's letter. For such a lettered man, you'd think Gunter could have made a better, no wait more honest argument. This was sent to the editor at the News Sentinel to send along to Mr. Gunter.

Gunter: I was both appalled and amused at the recent guest column by Doug Schumick, in which he offered a rebuttal to another recent guest column by B.J. Harper, an award-winning high school science teacher who expressed her concerns about global warming and endorsed the movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”For the record I spent much more time debunking Al Gore’s movie than making personal attacks on B.J. Harper whom I never mentioned by name in my original letter. Schumick noted, “I am not a scientist,” then proceeded to prove this fact through an incredible display of ignorance.

Schumick: Nice. We’ll see. And you're what...?

Gunter: Yes, the rapid decline of glaciers from Glacier National Park is a scientifically significant climatological event that can be observed by anyone who cares to visit that magnificent national park.

Schumick: This point was never disputed. What was questioned was using a single visit or even a series of casual visits to anywhere as a scientific method.

Gunter: Comparing that significant scientific event, which validly demonstrates the warming of our planet, to the temperatures that he encountered on a brief visit to San Francisco in the summer proves that Schumick does not have even the slightest understanding of science.

Schumick: Gunter has got be kidding. This proves that either he did not read my letter or made no effort to understand what was written. He makes my point. From my letter, “I once visited San Francisco in the summer and nearly froze at Coit Tower. However, I didn’t use my visit as a scientific method for concluding that we were headed toward another ice age - although I do recall a know-it-all public schoolteacher in the early 70s telling us that we were.”

Gunter: With reasoning like that, he would not have been able to successfully complete one of Harper’s courses in astronomy or meteorology at Northrop High School.

Schumick: Again, nice. Nor would I be able to pass a High School history class that uses Oliver Stone and Michael Moore movies as references. But I wouldn’t have to worry, because a science class that would give serious consideration to Al Gore’s foolish movie would not include me or my children. Given his inability or unwillingness to honestly state the points made in my letter, I’d conclude that Gunter could not pass a simple reading comprehension test.

Gunter: After demonstrating his ignorance of scientific principles and methodology, Schumick then attempts to support his opinion by citing a single source, found while searching the Internet, that echoes his biased viewpoint.

Schumick: Again, very nice. This is a complete and irresponsible mischaracterization of my letter. First, as stated in my letter, I could have pulled hundreds of quotes. Would the News Sentinel print a hundred pages of quotes? I used one quote noting that it was one of hundreds, including a couple of sources from MIT.

Gunter: In doing so, he has discounted and failed to give credit to the hundreds or thousands of articles and opinions of scientists who disagree with his position. I can no doubt find sources on the Internet who believe that the world is flat, that man has never stepped foot on the moon and that the moon is made of Swiss cheese. The freedom of expression found on the Internet hardly constitutes a valid basis for scientific proof of a fact.

Schumick: This confirms one of my central points, that it is the “we’re all going to be fried” people that refuse to consider any point of view but their own. Anyone who might dare disagree with this mob has to be vilified and lampooned.

Gunter: Fortunately, real scientific dialogue does not take place in the general news media, which is where Schumick looks for support in his attempts to manipulate truth.

Schumick: Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is what is trying to manipulate the science and the truth. Fortunately, there are boat loads upon boat loads of “real” scientist who respectfully (a word not in Gunter’s vocabulary) disagree and are simply ignored or shouted down by the mob.

Gunter: Real scientific debate or dialogue occurs in peer-reviewed scientific journals that attempt to filter out pseudoscience, invalid studies and poorly reasoned conclusions.

Schumick: While Gunter is filtering out his pseudo science, there are thousands of other scientists filtering out theirs. And that’s why there is debate. A debate Gunter and his crowd want no part of - Just trust us, after all we have a movie you know.

Gunter: Global warming is a scientific fact, not subject to any serious scientific dispute.

Schumick: THIS IS KEY. If Gunter can put his finger on one line in my letter where I contend that the Earth is not warming, I’ll buy him a steak dinner. I never contended any such thing. Gunter is again proving his inability to read and understand anything that does not conform to his preconceived notion. The Earth has warmed between one-half and one degree over the last century. That was not the point of my letter. The point was that the Earth has always warmed and cooled and that we should not rely on political foolishness from Al Gore to predict the world’s end in ten years.

Gunter: The real issue for debate is whether the global warming that is occurring right now is purely part of a natural cycle of climate change or whether man contributes to this cycle through the release of heat and chemical compounds from combustion and industrial processes.

Schumick: In all of his hysteria, Gunter, unintentionally I’m sure, swerves into the truth. But he can’t leave it alone, as we’ll see later.

Gunter: The Bush administration has attempted to stifle this legitimate scientific debate by censoring the results of governmental studies of the issue and by threatening scientists with a loss of funding. If I were on the federal payroll, like Max Mayfield, I would likely avoid directly participating in that debate, too. It should be noted that Mayfield did not rule out possible contributions due to global warming.

Schumick: See? Max Mayfield’s quote was used precisely because it noted the cyclical nature of the Earth’s cooling and warming. That is a position that Gunter seems to agree with in the note above, but now feels obligated to trash because the source is a Bush Administration official. Any political agenda there?

Gunter: The real issue that we should be addressing is whether we can afford to wait for indisputable proof of man’s destruction of his own environment and the habitability of our planet before we begin to take actions aimed at reducing those impacts. We are a very selfish society. We want to be able to waste enormous amounts of nonrenewable energy resources and enjoy a gluttonous lifestyle without any restrictions imposed by our government or by our fellow inhabitants of the planet. Any responsible citizen should consider for at least a few minutes that there is a very real possibility we are destroying the habitability of our planet and contributing to the eventual elimination of the human race. If people like Schumick would consider for a moment the consequences of being wrong in this debate, then perhaps we could begin addressing the issue in a more rational and appropriate manner. (My emphasis)

Schumick: Yeah right. You have got to be kidding. You want an Inconvenient Truth? Gunter’s hero, Al Gore, has two homes totaling 14,000 square feet. He receives no credits for use of alternative fuels in his homes or fleet of gas guzzling cars. Gore has controlled hundreds of thousands of dollars in Occidental Petroleum stock. Oxy has been mired in controversy over oil drilling in ecologically sensitive areas. Gore gets $20,000 a year from an environmentally unfriendly zinc mine located on one of his properties. He jets around the world on a private plane like we walk to the frig to get a cold one. If people like Al Gore would stay home for a year, stop burning tons upon tons of fule, and leave people like Schumick alone, who knows, the Earth’s temp might just cool a bit.

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