Dear Editor
Tom Fletcher says the Antarctic ice is increasing, contrary to forecasts. I want to know where he got that data. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, (NSIDC), an affiliate with NASA and NOAA, 2019 Antarctic sea ice extent stood at the lowest extent on this date over the 40-year satellite record. ()
Fletcher claims sea levels are rising, but the rise is not accelerating, again he can鈥檛 be getting his scientific data from NASA, NOAA or their affiliates, so where is he getting this nonsense from? NOAA鈥檚 ocean fact page says clearly that sea levels are rising at an increasing rate. ()
Fletcher says Greta Thunberg got her inspiration from the world-famous starving polar bear video; here he is clearly just making stuff up. Greta was in fact inspired by the Parkland student shooting survivors protest, and also because her home country of Sweden suffered its hottest summer on record. A simple google search will provide ample evidence to prove those two things are what motivated Thunberg. ()
Blatant lies like Fletcher鈥檚 must be called out for what they are. I agree with the letters in the Comox Valley Record last week that Tom Fletcher鈥檚 column must be replaced with something more useful to society.
If the science data isn鈥檛 enough for you, cast your eyes to our local glacier and the photos of the last seven years of melt. After a warm and dry spring, then a wet summer, the Comox Glacier is almost unrecognizable, with new ice caves forming, new rock exposed, and large ice boulders collapsing where a solid surface of ice used to be just the year before. In the past, changes like this, geologists tell us, would happen over many years, but now the glacier is galloping toward extinction and so should Fletcher鈥檚 columns.
Fred Fern,
Merville
