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I’m all for freedom of speech and diversity of opinion. But some of the letters I read in the letters pages of our newspapers really are written by crazy people.  Science-related subjects especially seem to bring out the nutters.

I read a lot of letters in the country’s newspapers so I’m beginning a series that will flag the craziest ones to show the sort of irrational yet stridently held views on science-related issues that are out there.

To kick off, I’ll go with the following letter published today in the Timaru Herald:

timaru herald letter

Gang of scammers? Well, I suppose that’s one label for the scientists across the country’s CRIs and universities working on climate change adaptation and mitigation research and technology. Yes, $182 million is a lot of money Mr Walker, but that’s spread over 15 years – some of those projects started in 1999 while others are funded through to 2015. They include everything from the GNS Science’s Global Change Through Time research project to a $12 million grant to alternative energy company Lanzatech which has just completed a successful trial at Glenbrook steel mill where it is converting flue gases into ethanol.

You’d think Mr Walker would appreciate the need for more research to get a better idea of how climate change is likely to impact the world – or even as he’d probably put it – to debunk the global warming myth. But he calls that the  “indoctrination of a generation”. I hate to think of what his alternative vision for the current generation of children is…