No need to get hot and bothered

"Hurry, hurry, hurry!" urged the man with the straw hat and the striped coat. "See Snow White's apple, poisoned with Alar; behold the microscopic asbestos crystals as they destroy human lungs; absorb the cancercausing rays transiting the ozone hole; soak yourself in acid rain; walk through the radon exposure tunnel; peer into the depths of the China Syndrome; see the historic warnings of global cooling, icebergs in New York Harbors.

"Then when you are scared beyond your limits to feel fear, try the global warming ride and experience the heights of uncontrollable terror: a 20-foot ocean surge, searing heat, unleashed violence and pestilence, the Four Horsemen galloping unfettered, ever more destructive tornados, cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes, droughts and floods, eruptions and avalanches. Pick your own style of death. Discounts for those willing to donate their last hours for TV coverage."

Politcal barkers have been conning the electorate for lifetimes. Only the causes change. Tiny problems- and sometimes even nonproblems- are promoted as planetwide catastrophes, and the suckers dutifully cough up money and pledge their fealty.

Today, global warming is the politically correct form for selfflagellation, but as always, it is presented without scientific proof. Merely post hoc, ergo propter hoc- "after, therefore because of." Example: Babe Ruth hit home runs after eating hot dogs. Ergo, hot dogs cause home runs. What kind of experimental hooey are they feeding us? What happened to the scientific method?

Have you noticed that Mars, Pluto and Triton have been getting warmer in concert with the Earth? Possibly more planets as well, but these three orbs are the only ones where we had instrumentation available for measurement. Could it possibly be that the sun's directly-measured increase in irradiance is warming all of the planets? Or has the politicians' hot air been magically transported across interplanetary space? William O. Felsman Woodland Hills