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Hockey Stick graph is for real

Letter from Leslie Willoughby

Climate – October 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Dear Ed,

How wonderful it is to find among your readers several who would take the time to write cogent letters regarding Global Climate Change. While I agreed with Ide Trotter’s recommendations and conclusion that “dependence on imported crude oil should be reduced,” I was confounded to read Ide’s report of the hockey stick graph “refutation.”

According to the Los Angeles Times (Panel Affirms Global Warming, June 23, 2006) a report from the National Research Council “dismissed critic’s charges that fraud and statistical error were responsible for the graph’s sharp upward swing, noting that many studies had confirmed its essential conclusions in the eight years since it was first published in the journal Nature.”

House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), who requested the study, commented, “There is nothing in this report that should raise any doubts about the broad scientific consensus on global climate change …. or any doubts about whether any paper on the temperature records was legitimate scientific work.”

I find it unfortunate that Ide Trotter resorts to name-calling when referring to “legitimate scientific work.”

Leslie Willoughby

Crowley Lake, Calif.