To the editor:

George Gurley’s ad hominem contempt for Al Gore and other global warming activists (July 2, Journal-World) is predicated on denying the scientific consensus on climate change. As evidence, Gurley cites two dissenting scientists, Bob Carter and Tim Patterson (plus an irrelevant and out-of-date quote from “a group of distinguished economists”). Carter and Patterson may be sincere, but their many erroneous statements are well-documented on the Web. Their prominence is an artifact of heavy funding from Exxon-Mobil, the leading organization for climate-change disinformation. Gurley could have quoted several other climate change deniers also closely associated with big oil money.

Gurley misquotes Gore as claiming 100 percent agreement among scientists. Gore actually said, quite accurately, that of some 900 recent articles on global warming randomly sampled from top journals, 100 percent accepted the thesis that human activities are causing drastic climate change. “Consensus” in science happens when most scientists reach agreement and the cutting edge of research moves on. Some dissenters are always left behind, but they are ignored – except when biased outside PR campaigns bamboozle the popular press, as on evolution and climate change and the health effects of tobacco.

Gurley also makes pedestrian points that scientists could be wrong and it’s hard for lay people to know the truth. When catastrophe looms, existential uncertainty is a miserable excuse for failure to act judiciously on whatever imperfect information we have. I have no sympathy for lazy journalists who jeer at scientists and their honest popularizers instead of making the effort to learn about real science.

David Burress,

Lawrence