Matt Kokkonen’s semiliterate and facile interpretation of a few snippets of neighborhood temperature data as proof that “The foundation for the claim for man-made global warming … is fallacious” reveals the workings of a mind both uninformed and partisan (“Bad data underlie global warming claim,” Jan. 21). Among the items on a long list of phenomena one would need to account for prior to arriving at such a conclusion are these critical and well-documented planetary changes:

1. Worldwide increases in average yearly temperature on every
continent

2. Measurable and incremental
increases in sea levels

3. Measurable and incremental increases in the acidity in all major bodies of water, most disturbingly in all seas and oceans

4. Significant year-to-year decreases in most glacial masses

5. The rapid degradation of polar ice

Any explanation would of course need to take into account the massive and universal output of greenhouse gases from strictly human activity and the yearly rise in the total global volume of such gasses. But such intellectual due-diligence is clearly beyond the capacity of Kokkonen who, like his zombie cohorts, prefers to let the unnatural take its course.

Presumably the qualifications for a California Assemblyman do not include clear thinking, willingness to do research, honest evaluation of all evidence before decisions are taken, or even the ability to organize a short essay at a 10th-grade level. Well, darn it anyway, he’s free to run for whatever office he chooses. I just hope to hell the voters are smarter than he is—and that whoever beats him is a little more honest and, just maybe a little brighter.