WARMING: Bourget got it all right

If any Press readers were impressed with Cliff Harris’s recent articles debunking global warming, I urge you to read the guest column ‘My Turn” of April 9, 2010 by Jeffrey Bourget.

This author does a terrific job of exposing the fallacies of much of Mr. Harris’s claims that, for one thing, the earth’s glaciers are not melting.  Among the many mistakes Harris makes is he grossly over generalizes this issue.

As an example, he recently claimed that the Juneau Ice Field IS GETTING LARGER.  How much?  Getting larger where?  Over what period of time has this alleged growth occurred?  How was this growth measured and by whom? It is implied the glaciers emanating from this very large ice field (1,500 square miles) are also growing or certainly not receding.

However, he avoids telling the Press readers that, as an example, the popular Mendenhall glacier just out of Juneau has receded 2,800 meters since 1910 and 580 meters just in the last 62 years.  Even the much larger Taku glacier south of Juneau, whose source is the Juneau Ice Field, is very close to a static state or minor loss of mass regarding advancing or receding.

In summary regarding the glaciers flowing fromthe Juneau Ice Field which has about 40 large glaciers, at least 17 are retreating; many at a very rapid rate.  Other claims by Harris such as Greenland is not losing glacial ice and that the Antarctic is not loosing ice are just patently wrong and Mr. Bourget clearly brings this out in his article.

Mr. Bourget submits a list of Cliff Harris’s “technical” sources or authors with backgrounds on them.  The disclosure of extremely questionable qualifications of these so-called experts is nothing short of embarrassing.  I do not criticize Cliff Harris for his anti global warming position: I do criticize Mr. Harris for his sloppy presentation of his position using information of dubious credibility.

JOHN BENTLEY

Post Falls