It seems like I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying The Saturday Evening Post all of my life, being introduced early on by my parents. I always look forward to reading interesting and objective articles that deal with “life the way that it is.” Having said this, I am constrained to observe that the article “Why Bother” [Sept./Oct. 2008] seemed to significantly stray from this time-honored publishing of material with a high level of objectivity and the way it really is.
Pollan provides statements about global warming and climate change which are at least misleading and 10 years behind.
For instance, after citing Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth conclusion as being an “utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change,” this concern is enhanced by his observation that, “Climate change is upon us and it has arrived well ahead of schedule,” and “Have you looked into the eyes of a climate scientist recently? They look really scared.” These statements went largely unchallenged in 1998 when Al Gore predicted immediate rising global temperatures to go up exponentially from what he declared was the hottest year in the past century (1998), but the inconvenient truth is that during the 10 years since 1998, average global temperatures not only have not gone up exponentially as predicted by the Gore-used computer models, but actually have gone down.
Another egregious example of contrary facts is when Michael Pollan cites the 1970s as the beginning of the significance of climate change to the survival of the earth and mankind. The problem here is that the climate “crisis” of the 1970s had nothing to do with global warming, but rather dire, certain predictions of a coming ice age.
My wife loves her garden; almost every foot of our garden is planted—not so she will feel good about getting over a “cheap energy mind,” but she (and I) are joyful at what she and God together can produce. I will continue to thoroughly enjoy reading The Saturday Evening Post to the extent that articles (and cartoons!) continue to deal with realities of life—life as it really is.
John
Atherton, California
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