Cited information takes on new meaning

To the Editor:
This is in response to Bryan Newell’s letter from July 29.
I am glad you gave a reference for your argument regarding global warming.
I went to www.petitionproject.com and looked everything over.  I noticed that the Web site did, indeed, say that more than 31,000 scientists had signed the petition. Then I kept reading and discovered that these scientists were not all practicing scientists. In fact, the only criteria for signing the petition was that a person have a degree in one form of science or another, including veterinarians.
Then I researched Frederick Seitz, who was the head honcho at petitionproject.com. He died at the age of 96 March 2, 2008. It turns out he was employed by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and was the scientist who claimed that inhaling tobacco smoke could not be proved to cause cancer.
I also looked up the 35 “untruths” of “An Inconvenient Truth.” That list was written by a member of the Conservative Party of Britain, Viscount Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, a journalist, not a scientist, who was asked by the finance committee of British Parliament to see if there was a problem regarding global warming and the corporate world. He came up with some pretty hokey items, such as Pacific Islands not being inundated by the ocean (they are), and there being no glacial shrinkage in Greenland (there is).  The rest of the list is just as unbelievable.
Polar bears will be almost extinct by 2050, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and other scientific research organizations.
NASA scientists say that their climate model shows global warming will produce more severe tornadoes.  And NOAA has a list of severe tornadoes going back to 1953 which shows a huge increase in severe tornadoes. Every year has a major increase.
Hope this helps, Bryan.

Donna Schoenkopf
Tecumseh