Junk Science at The Washington Post Jude Wanniski August 26, 1999

Memo To: The Post's science editors
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Check the wind, folks

Yes, I suppose you have to assign a reporter to the reports of the National Resources Defense Council, no matter how incompetent the folks are at the NRC. Your reporter, Fern Shen, did make a few phone calls for critical reaction to their report on how ozone is blowing around, causing all sorts of pollution. You really should retain a real scientist to sniff the NRC material before you go to print. It only took one e-mail from me to Dr. Gordon Prather, a first-class physicist, to get the following response to Ms. Shen's account:

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This is "acid rain" junk science deja vu. How can The Washington Post report that the prevailing winds blow "smog" west from the District of Columbia to the Shenandoah? Apparently the same way that the folks who brought us "acid rain" got winds from the Ohio Valley to cause "acidity" in the lakes in central Florida (which had higher levels of acidity than did those in eastern Canada). I'm not a climatologist, Jude, but I have never had a head wind while flying East. Furthermore, as long as I can remember, if you want to know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, check and see what the weather is today about a hundred or so miles to the West. The thing I see wrong with the WP piece is that the Globalists are confronted with an embarrassment; the ozone levels are much reduced where the Globalists "know" they should be higher, mostly because of urban auto use, and the ozone levels are much higher where they "know" they should be lower. So why not have the wind blow from East to West? That would explain it.

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"Taking a Vacation in the Ozone"
By Fern Shen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 1999; Page A16