The breakthrough that wasn't.

• Author: Bielicki, Richard F.
• Position: Letters - Research on climate change - Letter to the editor

I can't understand why reason, an otherwise libertarian publication, continues to provide a forum for the progressive hyperbole promoted by Ronald Bailey. "The Breakthrough That Wasn't" (March) posits that global warming exists, is a menace, and is undeniably man-made.

Bailey ignores the fact that carbon dioxide contributions from anthropogenic activities total only about 0.12 percent of the greenhouse gases surrounding the earth. He ignores the fact that tornado activity of the F2 or stronger category has been declining since the early 1970s, and that global hurricane activity is at its lowest level in 30 years. He makes no mention that the Sahara Desert has been shrinking since the early 1980s.

Most egregiously, he ignores the reported unreliability of much of the surface temperature recording being conducted by the government today. AnthonyWatts of SurfaceStations.org found that of 860 surface monitoring stations inspected by his team (out of the total network of 1,221 stations monitored by the government), 89 percent failed to meet the National Weather Service's sighting requirements. Surely reason's science correspondent should apply the scientific method a bit more judiciously.

Richard J. Bielicki

Camp Hill, PA

Bailey responds: Scientists generally accept that, by itself, doubling the...