As a sailor, I like to read the free sailing magazine published here called Latitude 38. While it has excellent coverage of sailing-related issues, the publisher/editor is somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun politically; he is a die-hard “free” marketeer. As such, he gives credence to the global warming deniers. In their current issue, they published the following letter of mine, along with their reply:

WHEN WILL WE KNOW? 

Oh lord, here we go again with the global warming “skeptics.” In the December issue, Latitude wondered, “What’s with the 62% increase in Arctic ice over last year?”

True, you said that you “give the benefit of the doubt to the overwhelming majority of scientists who believe in climate change,” but that “we should know in 30 years or so.” Wrong. We know now. First of all, it took me all of 13.5 minutes to do a little research about the growth of “Arctic” ice. (You can do it, too, as there is this website called ‘google dot com’ that you can use for such information.) It turns out that it’s in the Antarctic where sea ice (vs. land ice) has been increasing — despite the warming of the Southern Ocean. There are several reasons: Freshening of the ocean, changed wind patterns, decrease in the ozone layer. But not a cooler ocean! 

Read more:letter to Latitude 38