COLUMN: Press should fact-check

The Press is doing a terrible disservice to its readers and to truth and legitimacy by continuing to publish the writing of Cliff Harris. My wife and I visit this area, where I grew up, once a summer, and I thought his column which I read last summer was bad, but the column in Monday’s paper is worse. It spreads outright lies as fact and does so in a condescending and dismissive manner. If we are going to have a debate about global climate change, let’s have the debate based on real, scientifically established data.

A quick Google search revealed that Professor Plimer’s “facts” about the amount of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere by all the volcanoes on Earth are totally overblown and have been debunked for a couple of years now. Contrary to the assertions of Plimer/Harris, the actual ratio of man-made carbon emissions to volcanic carbon emissions is in the neighborhood of 130 to 1. These emissions are measurable and are, in fact, being measured. There is a monitoring station in Hawaii that has been measuring the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere for many years and the graph of those measurements shows a steady, sustained rise due to human activity.

One fact that has been known since the late 1800s is that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reflects some solar heat back to Earth rather than letting it escape into space. Research has proven that the more carbon dioxide you have in the atmosphere, the more heat is reflected back to our atmosphere. These facts are irrefutable.

Carbon dioxide is beneficial in normal amounts, just like water, but if you drink too much water in too short a period of time it will kill you. This happened to a woman trying to win a radio station contest a few years ago. Same with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — too much is going to do irreparable harm to our planet and the generations to come.

Please fact check Mr. Harris before publishing his writing and if his “facts” are consistently not true, please discontinue his column. Lying is not a good way to win arguments.

WALTER WRAY

WILSON, JR.

Everett, Wash.