I am disapointed with Jim Heim's July 25 letter attacking 32,000 legitimate scientists who have expressed serious doubts about the junk science of global warming.

Al Gore and others in his camp are unwilling to debate the issue, saying "the science is settled."

The American Physical Society has recently kicked off a debate on the subject by saying the following: "There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), concluding that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

Recently, Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrated via 30 equations that computer models used by the IPCC were pre-programed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is climate sensitivity (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500 to 2,000 percent overstatement of CO2's effect on temperature in the latest climate assessment report published in 2007.

Heim also fails to understand basic economics. He claims that drilling in the United States will reduce gas prices by six cents a gallon in 12 years. The fact is the United States has more known oil reserves than Saudi Arabia. Since President Bush announced he is in favor of drilling, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped by about $20. That illustrates the law of supply and demand at work.

As I have said before, faced with evidence undermining their feelings, liberals choose to stick their heads in the sandhills.

Martin Samchalk, Pinehurst