What is fake news when it comes to climate change?

Have you ever taken a test, or had a challenge, where after you learned the result you wished you could have a do-over? Would it be fair to allow your result to be altered but no one else’s? How you answer those questions could be instructive. A recent article in “The New American” revealed that some scientists in NASA had manipulated data multiple times since 2000 to show a “… global land temperature increase …” (fake news?) and had conveniently erased the medieval warm period, defined fake news as the deliberate attempt to mislead. Is it misleading to combine a fact with an unproven theory? That appears to have happened in a recent letter to the editor when the writer stated that “fossil fuel industries have known for decades that climate change is real and is caused by the burning of their own products.” The first part is fact. The last part is unproven.

In 1978, one of Exxon’s “senior scientists” sounded his concern about global warming (The 1970s were filled with butter alarms, sweetener alarms, Arab oil alarms, etc). He declared that the end of the earth would occur in 15 years unless changes occurred. The end date has vacillated. Currently it is less than 12 years. CFACT, Joe Bastardi, Roy Spencer and others have proven the exaggerations, including weather-related claims, false. The focus should be to prove how 4/10,000 of the atmosphere can change the entire climate system.

JEREMY CONLIN

Cocolalla