Herald-Leader flooded with letters against Gooch

   If you opened the Lexington Herald-Leader's Opinions page yesterday, you may have been in awe that EIGHTEEN letters to the editor were printed, slamming Representative Jim Gooch.  Most letters challenged his backwards, fraudulent, and under-handed actions, claiming the global warming "scare" to be a "conspiracy" - all claims made in the service of big coal companies to which Gooch owes his political career as well as his livelihood. 

   Many of the letters were from KFTC members all across the state.  Indeed, there were so many letters against Gooch that no letters were printed on any other topic, and these 18 letters took up the entire Letters to the Editor page.

I am sick and tired of the absurdist version of reality that is continually propagated by skeptics of global warming.

Spectacles like the farce that went on in Frankfort on Nov. 14, when legislators applauded witnesses who declared they did not "believe in" disprovable scientific theories, help to explain why our state continues to rank near the bottom in so many national indicators.

At its root, science is an exercise in logic that leads to definitive answers, not a belief system or a political football game. Lawyers and once-influential British ideologists are not experts on climate change.

If state Rep. Jim Gooch could not find credible scientists to testify before his committee or was too insecure in his position to allow presentation of an opposing viewpoint, he should not have wasted his fellow lawmakers' time or citizens' money.

Policymakers who continue to wonder why our state has trouble retaining academically talented students and attracting growing industries need look no further than the inanity of Gooch and his compatriots.

Incidentally, I've decided I no longer believe in gravity."

                                                                                - Jay Prather, Lexington

Do you believe in reincarnation? If so, imagine state Rep. Jim Gooch as a polar bear swimming furiously to find the nearest glacier that has already melted. His recent denial of global warming is equally as futile. Denying it won't make it go away.

Debating the issue wastes valuable time needed to make important decisions about how we can expand our use of renewable energy sources in ways that could also be economically viable for all Kentuckians, especially our coalfield citizens.

But then maybe that's the whole idea when you put your profits ahead of the planet."

                                                                                - Suzanne Tallichet, Morehead