THE ENVIROMENT PAGE 2
THE ENVIROMENT
WATERMELONS
The Green Movement's True Colors
(Green on the outside. Red on the inside)
by JAMES DELINGPOLE

Lisa Benson's "Church of Global Warming" editorial cartoon
December 28, 2010
http://www.vvdailypress.com/opinion/crime-25070-editor-letters.html

San Francisco Chronicle
December 31, 2010

Re: Anti-Lisa Benson cartoon
Letters to the editor

The San Francisco Chronicle should be commended for the journalistic objectivity to publish Lisa Benson's "Church of Global Warming" editorial cartoon.

I have known Lisa Benson from her early days of providing cartoons for our local newspaper, and for my books, to the success she enjoys today. Lisa is a major talent with the innate ability to capture salient issues of our times in cartoons.

Unfortunately, the three letter-writers -- "Climate change is not funny, And the Earth is flat too, and Snow? In winter? -- who condemn Lisa's cartoon are among the millions indoctrinated by environmental zealots through years of fear-conditioning in the education establishment, politics, government and the media.

Question is, are they willing to throw themselves and their fellow citizens under the economic bus, solely based upon the misinformation of those who locked themselves inside the expert-box of an inextricable hoax?

Daniel B. Jeffs
Apple Valley, Calif.

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Letters condemning Lisa Benson's editorial cartoon:

San Francisco Chronicle
Letters to the editor
December 31, 2010

Climate change is not funny

The Lisa Benson cartoon Dec. 28 showing a bus called "Church of Global Warming" in a massive snowstorm with perplexed passengers looking stunned (above):

This can be humorous only to those skeptical of the truth of global warming and panders to their lack of understanding. Where do they think all this water in the form of rain storms and snow comes from? As the average temperature warms only a few degrees, more moisture evaporates from the oceans, and with cooling in the winter, more rain and snow falls. What is happening is entirely predicted as a result of global warming. If we fail to understand this and do nothing, millions of people will be sitting in water or forced to move to higher ground, among other catastrophes. Stop laughing and start thinking.

Melvin Cheitlin, San Francisco

And the Earth is flat, too

, Observing Tuesday's editorial cartoon, I immediately envisioned a whole series of cartoons following the same logic.

For example, a crowd labeled Church of Gravity could be looking up at an airplane, wearing those same "Gee, looks like were wrong" facial expressions. Or in a more fitting parallel, a Church of Evolution group could be shown staring impatiently at a monkey, wondering why it isn't evolving into another animal right before their eyes. In all seriousness, you owe it to your readers not to cater to this type of flat-Earth ignorance.

Climate change, as it is properly called, is nobody's article of faith. It's a foreboding reality that's affirmed by the entire reputable scientific community, an affirmation based (like all genuine science) on the diligent study of evidence.

There's plenty of space in right-wing newsletters and websites for a cartoon implying that our entire body of knowledge on this subject is undone by the observation that snow still exists.

Reed Fromer, San Rafael

Snow? In winter?

Lisa Benson's editorial page cartoon is, and should be, an insult to the intelligence of every Chronicle reader.

It is flat-out wrong on so many levels: Global warming (more properly, climate change) is not a church or a faith-based religious belief, as Lisa Benson's church bus would imply. Climate change is the conclusion reached by an overwhelming majority of climate researchers worldwide by scientific observations, experiments and computer modeling.

Climate and weather are not the same thing. Yes, parts of our country are experiencing harsh blizzards right now. It's winter, Lisa.

Overall, and for the last three or four decades, our earth has begun experiencing a noticeable climate change. The only question is where and how fast this is occurring and to what extent human activity has abetted it and what politically and economically can be done about it.

We here in the United States must take more of a leadership role on this issue.

David Murphy, Petaluma