To the Editor:
    Dave Belton’s letter on ‘Cap and Trade’ in last week’s Citizen is an example of how the very real problem of global warming is obfuscated by hack pseudo science.
    He states, “Thirty-one thousand scientists (including 9,000 with Ph.D.’s) have recently signed a petition rejecting human made global warming, asserting that an elevated carbon dioxide level would actually help the planet with higher crop yields that would feed the starving masses.”
    The problem with Mr. Belton’s reporting is that there are NOT 31,000 scientists who have “recently” signed a petition rejecting man made global warming! The crux of this preposterous statement comes from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine located in Cave Junction, Oregon.
    The OSISM is not a university, not even a school and not accredited. It was founded by an eccentric renegade scientist, Arthur Robinson in 1980. There, with his family and a half dozen other “scientists” the institute has produced some “original” research on how to survive a nuclear war and how the Y2K bug would stop civilization in its tracks when the year 2000 arrived.
    Along with ultra right wing conservative Christian Gary North, the institute pushes apocalyptic books like “None Call it Witchcraft, Conspiracy: A Biblical View,” “Rapture Fever” and “How You Can Profit from the Coming Price Controls.” Another book, “Fighting Chance: Ten Fee to Survival” is a civil defense book which follows up on their belief that the dangers of nuclear war are over blown and that “those in charge are just trying to scare us and demoralize us.”
    With this background the Institute started the Global Warming Petition Project in 1998. Over the last 10 years it has been updated and names added until it now has 31,000 plus “signatures.” You can go to the project’s web site and “see” the names of the signers. At the site much is made of the fact that these are “scientists,” yet many are veterinarians, medical doctors, animal science majors, astronomers, electrical engineers and food science graduates. Supposedly there are 9,000PhD.’s, thousands of masters and bachelors and 12,000 with “equivalent degrees.” What is an equivalent degree?
    The problem is, not one of the 31,000 signers works or has published peer-reviewed material pertaining to climate change. There is no way of validating the alleged “degrees,” indeed at least some of the signers have no doctorate, some do not exist and not one is identified as working in the area of climate research. All in all the 10-year “project” gathered names of ordinary citizens who do not believe in global warming and nothing more.
    Dave Belton is a skilled and accomplished airline pilot, a good writer and is on the Morgan County Board of Education. He probably has some type of science or engineering degree. He does not however, understand global warming. That in itself is not bad because it is a very difficult and knotty problem. It is incumbent on all of us you research in reputable places so we can make knowledgeable statements and decisions.
    If there is one place you would NEVER go to get reliable information on global warming it is Cave Junction, Oregon.
    Pssst and we should look into the statement that “96 percent of greenhouse cases come naturally from the oceans,” that just doesn’t sound quite right.   
Bill Scholly
Buckhead
via email