Consequences
The fall-out from appearing on The Daily Show is finally ebbing. I'm left with some violent dislikes. Among them are:
People who e-mail you, castigating you for being among those who believe that humanly caused global warming is a reality. Invariably they have agendas, accuse you of getting facts wrong or of faulty research, or are angry at a third party. Most of the time, they've only skimmed your book to see if you are on their side or not. And what they say is THE TRUTH!
People who assume that you are an expert on some esoteric aspect of science that will solve our warming problems. Such correspondents range from those who think that natural desalinization will work to those who are seeking someone (preferably me) to finance their esoteric machine that will solve all our warming problems.
Those who either send you, or offer to send you, their books or book length manuscripts on global warming whether you want them or not. Almost invariably, they're looking for validation, or, even worse, an endorsement or a publisher.
The anonymous correspondents who tell you have Sinned with a capital S, then refer you to the Gospels for salvation. These gentry are more common than you might think.
Finally, the invariably anonymous e-mailers who are just plain abusive. How dare I write about global warming?
All of this makes for an entertaining, if often pathetic, backdrop to an ongoing dialogue with those readers who, bless them, offer perspectives, references, news of ongoing research, and critical analysis. Such responses to The Great Warming keep me humble and maintain my sense of perspective.
Why does climate change attract such misdirected passion and so many tenaciously developed agendas? Probably because it's been politicized, which is inevitable up to a point--but the full force of national exposure has been sobering.
Dear Brian,
First of all I want to thank you for your excellent books on past civilisations and the influence of climate. Because of my role as one of the more active anthropogenic global warming AGW hype sceptics in Finland, I ordered via Amazon, The Long Summer, The Little Ice Age, and Floods, Famines and Emperors. I enjoyed these books very much and have recommended them to many friends and colleagues.
In your blog you do mention being attacked by IPCC believers and I sympathise with you having myself been harassed by the likes.
Anyhow, to return to my main question regarding climate change. I wonder if you have constructed any form of a concise list or table of “dates” and climatic events that could be used by us sceptics when being confronted by politically oriented climatologists in insisting on manmade global warming. As you know the proponents of AGW insist that the current slight increase in global temperature (itself a very strange parameter) is unprecedented in rapidity and thus leading to catastrophic extreme weather events.
Gratefully awaiting some form of answer from You, I remain,
Sincerely Yours
Boris Winterhalter, PhD
retired
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