Faux legitimacy
In her Sun article “The Rising” [Sept. 2], Kathleen Willett in the end reports the clear evidence of the warming of the ocean locally, and the effects of that on local algal blooms and shellfish. Inexplicably, however, before she lays out quite thoroughly the incontrovertible facts, she begins by asking: “Could the ocean along the Marin and Sonoma Coasts actually be getting warmer as the climate change believers would have us think?”
The way she words her question suggests that those “climate change believers” are merely “believers” with an agenda to “have us think” some spurious unproven theory they have cooked up. In fact, those “believers” are 99 percent of all relevant scientists, as well as the entire community of educated and intelligent citizens who read the news and use their brains. Perhaps Ms. Willett simply meant her question to be a cutely naive and ironic intro hook, but in fact it sows doubt about the established truth of the ongoing catastrophic climate change, trivializing its firm scientific foundation and the motives of those who have researched it, and of those who are organizing to change public policy so as to save us from this well-documented environmental disaster.
In fact, Willett’s question accords faux legitimacy to the climate change deniers—the religious and political right wing who are the real kooks in this matter. It is no less ridiculous a question than, “Might Barack Obama actually be a native-born American as his spin doctors would have us believe?” A paper representing a community as progressive and well-educated as Marin County should edit more carefully.
—Peter Gradjansky
