Rather than recount the same valid arguments, let me just point out a couple of Dr. Elwood’s mistakes in his recent letter (Daily Inter Lake, Jan. 5) attacking me for my position as a man-made climate-change denier.

First, as you well know, Dr. Elwood, I didn’t write the title of my letter (the editor does this), eliminating the motivation you assign to it. Thus, your accusing me of “motivated reasoning” based on the title of my letter is nonsense.

In fact, “motivated reasoning” seems much more appropriate to you and your fellow scientists who suck at the public teat with grants and salaries dependent on arriving at conclusions that support the beliefs of your funding sources. How else can you explain the behavior of your primary spokesperson and high priest of climate change, Al Gore, who is so so worried about the fate of mankind that his personal lifestyle is the poster child for a gigantic carbon footprint, who currently makes a tidy sum off of carbon credits (Generation Investment Management), and whose original wealth was based on his family’s oil business.

There is little about the United Nations, especially the IPCC, that is not political. This same organization has a Commission on Human Rights which includes the membership of China, Russia, Zimbabwe and Saudi Arabia! Are you really asserting there is no political motivation for the IPCC conclusions? Can you deny that some of the scientists involved in the drafting of the documents the IPCC has published have pointed to this political motivation, the distortion of their input despite their protestation, and have demanded that their names be removed from the documents?

I have no desire to silence you, but am dismayed at the attempts of your side to silence those of us who doubt your predictions. One need only examine the latest bit of chicanery — the “polar vortex” dubbed a “polar hurricane” by liberal NBC weatherman Al Roker — being used to explain the latest record-setting cold across the United States. These routine upper-level low-pressure systems over the polar regions and Canada occasionally drift south over the United States for 24 to 48 hours. “It’s not rare at all,” according to AccuWeather senior forecaster, John Gresiak. But no... this cold weather system must also be ascribed to global warming.

So, according to your “science,” if we have record heat it is man-made global warming and if we have record cold it is man-made global warming! Kind of like “Heads I win; tails you lose.” I envy a theory that can never be wrong, regardless of the data.

The other difference between deniers and believers, of course, is your demand that we all radically change our lifestyle and destroy our economy to avert the catastrophes that your inaccurate models predict.

You and your fellow “settled science” advocates fail to meet each prediction that you and your multiple computer models make. Instead of admitting your errors, you ascribe those very failures to the complicated climate system you are trying to predict... and at which you are failing so miserably. So when I state a belief that the temperature is rising in a cyclical pattern, as it has for thousands if not millions of years, and that only a minor part of that change is caused by human activity, I fail to see why you and your global warming fanatics can’t accept an opposing view.

As I have stated, theories are merely theories until they predict future data points, which yours has failed to do. You do remember the “ice age” prediction of a mere 40 years ago?

Directly measured temperature data represents a minuscule portion of our planet’s climate history. I suggest a touch of humility when you try to predict the future based on such a trivial amount of data. The eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera or some other magnitude 7 volcanic eruption would likely drop planetary temperature a degree or two for a couple of years, putting a major dent in warming.

Our planet is quite complex and Mother Nature quite humbling. Humility, Dr. Elwood. You should try it!

 Myerowitz, of Columbia Falls, is a retired cardiac surgeon.