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At the end of his letter (Daily Bee, Nov. 22, 2018), Cort Gifford offers sage advice — “Educate yourself.” The most effective way to do that is to thoroughly examine all the pertinent evidence and derive conclusions that are best supported by factual information. Most of us have neither the time, inclination, resources, nor training to rigorously evaluate the complex scientific database associated with global warming. Instead, as in the case of other complicated scientific matters, we do the next best thing. We rely on the consensus of those who have the most expertise and best understanding of the subject. In the case of global warming, that would be the practicing climate scientists, 90-plus percent of whom agree that the current outcome is largely the result of the human consumption of fossil fuels.

Mr. Gifford ignores the consensus, dons his tin-foil hat, and embraces a conspiracy theory that blames the military/industrial complex for perpetrating some nefarious scheme to adversely manipulate the weather and control minds. His claim that the so-called HAARP project is being used to achieve this supposed clandestine agenda can be easily refuted by reading “HAARP-RationalWiki.”

Human activities are producing prodigious amounts of fossil-fuel derived CO2. That CO2 is accumulating in the upper atmosphere where it acts as a greenhouse gas to heat the Earth. Those are the hard facts. Unfortunately, the lay pubic is confronted with a bewildering slew of misinformation on this subject. Mr. Gifford’s latest contribution is one of the more esoteric examples of this subterfuge.

JACK DeBAUN

Sandpoint