Norman — Editor, The Transcript:
I am writing in response to David Deming’s recent op-ed (Feb. 20).
Deming claims that the public has been misinformed about global climate change. Although I disagree with his conclusions about climate change, I agree that the public has been misinformed.
You also printed two letters in response to Deming’s essay (Feb. 28); one a rebuttal of Deming’s conclusions, and the other an endorsement; neither letter purports to be from a scientist studying the problem. While the rebuttal alludes to the empirical evidence of cameras at the poles, overall these letters only contribute to the problem of misinformation.
Whether or not one believes that global climate change is real, or even a problem, it is important to understand that the science behind it involves correlating enormous amounts of data. Such data comes from the entire globe over the past few centuries as well as from analysis of longer trends over the course of geologic time. Arguments that don’t take this massive correlation of data into consideration are equivalent to saying “Your mother is cold, go put on a sweater.” We can’t make determinations about global changes based on whether we here in Oklahoma — a relatively small state — feel warm or cold. In fact, recent correlations of global temperatures indicate that globally this winter has been quite warm.
I am not a scientist and I am not writing to engage in the question of whether climate change is real. Rather, I am a person who believes that the press has a responsibility to inform, if not educate, the public. You have failed, in quite an irresponsible way, in this duty in the matter of global climate change by neglecting to inform the public of the ways in which this issue is studied, and by perpetuating misinformation in your publication of opinion articles and letters.
I realize that it must be difficult to be the editor of a local paper in a small town; clearly in your letters and your op-ed pieces you need to represent multiple political perspectives (so evidenced by the recent flurry of letters about Garrison Keillor’s column). But the failure to present a science as it is actually practiced isn’t about balancing perspectives. This failure, as I suggest above, contributes to the spread of misinformation — a much greater sin for an organ of the fourth estate.
KATHRYN L. STEELE
Norman
