George Woodwell’s attack in the letters page of the Boston Globe on James Taylor's article on The Day After Tomorrow is a textbook example of how the scientific establishment builds political mountains out of scientific molehills whenever anyone questions the vast sums paid out of taxpayers’ pockets to keep the global warming industry going. Woodwell’s critique of Taylor’s article omits important information the voter needs to help him decide whether global warming should be a priority when she needs to choose between, for example, education spending, climate change research funding and lower taxes.

Woodwell says the Earth has warmed rapidly over the last century. True (although "rapidly" is an overstatement), but as even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits, much of that warming happened in the first half of the century and man’s activities were not responsible. The planet cooled between the 1950s and 1970s. It is only in the past 30 years that scientists say the Earth has warmed owing at least in part to mankind’s contribution. The public needs to know that.

Woodwell says glacial ice is melting globally. Yes, glaciers all over the world are melting. Most of them have been melting for hundreds of years. The glaciers atop Kilimanjaro have been receding even though the temperature there has been falling. Other glaciers, however, like those in Scandinavia, are advancing. There are glaciers in Alaska advancing while others a short distance away are receding. The public needs to know that.

Woodwell says that sea level is rising. Yes over the past century, but again, sea level has been rising for a long time. Satellite altimeters indicate virtually no change in sea level globally over the past decade. On-the-ground research in the Maldives, one of the low-lying island chains often claimed to be at risk from the flooding Woodwell alleges, demonstrates that the sea level there has fallen significantly over the past 30 years. The public needs to know that.

Woodwell alleges that recent droughts in North America are “warming-induced.” The historical record indicates that North America has seen thirteen major droughts over the past 500 years, the worst of them by far in the Sixteenth century. We have seen nothing in recent years to rival this drought or that of the dust-bowl years. The public needs to know that.

Finally, Woodwell claims that anomalies such as tornadoes are becoming more common. True again, but intense tornadoes – the ones that do the damage – and deaths resulting from them have decreased . It’s probably that we see more tornadoes now simply because our monitoring systems are better at detecting small tornadoes than they were a few years ago.

The public needs to know all of this. Overall, the billions of dollars we spend on researching climate change reveal that the world is getting slightly warmer as a result of man’s activities. Whether this is anything to worry about is something voters and their representatives have to decide on the basis of full information. We should bear in mind that much of these scientists’ funding is dependent on voters being scared.

(In case anyone should object that my organization receives some funding from energy companies, I should say that CEI has a proud history of supporting free enterprise and limited government and we will continue to raise public awareness of the waste of public money climate alarmism represents regardless of our funding sources.)