Regarding http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/555959.html by Barbara Mills...

Your description of the "bullying of Al Gore" would imply that, for the first time in my life I've been categorized as a "bully." If I'm one of those bullies, at least I'm very clear why I pick on Al Gore. You can see some of my reasons on my personal website at http://www.plusaf.com/lessons/globalwarming.htm .

The "worldwide scientific consensus that global warming is real" you claim is also arguable. If you can bring yourself to read contrary views, I've found quite a few. Try this one for what may be one of the best: http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759 , a Senate speech with many links to doubts about the "consensus on global warming." It lists many counter-claims debunking data provided by Mr. Gore.

Here is a quote from that page:

"On July 24, 2006 The Los Angeles Times featured an op-ed by Naomi Oreskes, a social scientist at the University of California San Diego and the author of a 2004 Science Magazine study. Oreskes insisted that a review of 928 scientific papers showed there was 100% consensus that global warming was not caused by natural climate variations.

However, the analysis in Science Magazine excluded nearly 11,000 studies or more than 90 percent of the papers dealing with global warming, according to a critique by British social scientist Benny Peiser.

Peiser also pointed out that less than two percent of the climate studies in the survey actually endorsed the so-called "consensus view" that human activity is driving global warming and some of the studies actually opposed that view. "

Can you get to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data_glacial.html and look at the first graph there? It doesn't take an expert to look at that graph and see a general down-trend in global temperatures over the past several thousand years. Try this link for the signatures of sixty scientists who have more than a few doubts about the "consensus" on global warming: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=3711460e-bd5a-475d-a6be-4db87559d605

If you can get to http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/story2.html , you'll see that there have been two warmer periods on this planet in the past 350,000 years. No SUVs or coal-burning power plants to blame, there, right? But please note that the past three warm periods ended abruptly. The one we're in now actually looks like it's overdue for a temperature-plummeting crash. Maybe our CO2 emissions are holding off the next impending Ice Age...

Alan Falk
Raleigh, NC

Yeah, I know you won't publish it, but it's still cathartic...