Start worrying about cooling

Letters to the Editor, Corvallis Gazette-Times, Dec. 7, 3008
George H. Taylor, renowned Oregon climatologist, has a cool head and excellent scientific understanding. Taylor consistently relies on facts, rather than political and emotional pressure, to keep Oregonians informed about variations in local and worldwide climate.

On Sunday, Nov. 23, the Sunday paper published Taylor’s column, “NASA error may have had huge influence,” exposing worldwide temperature reporting errors by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies Director James Hansen.

It appears that, early on, Hansen jumped on the global warming bandwagon. Ego may have led him to repeatedly doctor statistics so that in 2008 it would appear that his predictions of global warming were right — the world is headed toward global warming catastrophe.

Actually, true statistics show that the highest worldwide temperatures of the century were in the 1930s and that 2008 had only the 70th warmest October in 114 years.

Both President-elect Obama and Oregon’s Gov. Kulongoski are on the global warming bandwagon.

But Oregon’s cyclic temperatures are falling and our snowpack last winter was above average. Maybe we should concern ourselves more with cooling, which would reduce our ability to produce enough food.

Jean Nelson, Corvallis