tldr

Just when I think I’ve run out of things to write about, along comes an unexpected trivial delight, a small item in a small newspaper that turned out to be a Readers’ Digest version of a much longer piece published in a more widely read journal, though I do not know about the “widely read” attribution.

The Canyon Courier is a small local tabloid here in the Denver foothills, and is part of a larger chain of such publications. It has an editor, Scott Taylor, whom I suspect holds that title for CC and perhaps other tabloids. Is there enough work in the one to justify a salaried title?

Canyon Courier offers some local news, utterly predictable op-eds, a fun weekly column satirizing local sheriff reports, and local sports. The latter is filler and of no interest beyond parents, but a requirement for all newspapers. The Denver Post does the same thing, calling its local sports trivia the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies, Denver Nuggets, and Colorado Avalanche. Such filler regularly leaks onto the front page.

As it happens, Mr. Taylor was, I suspect, short of content for his September 7 issue. He had previously exposed himself to me as a climate alarmist, which is vogue in journalism, where “climate skeptics” (“deniers”) are offered no ink. He linked to a real estate blog, Real Estate Today by Jim Smith, which has three followers. Smith does the proper duty of linking to the original Colorado Sun piece linked below, by Michael Booth. It was obvious to me that neither Taylor nor Smith actually read the Booth piece. They just clipped part of it, copying 7-800 words out of 6,155. Tldr.

Booth is listed as environment writer, co-author of a health newsletter, and a podcast. He has no scientific background, only journalism. I do not genuflect there.

So, me being me, read the Colorado Sun Booth piece, yellow highlighter in hand, and emailed my reactions to Taylor, Smith, and Booth. That email follows beneath the fold. It won’t be read by any of the email recipients, c‘est la vie. It’s just a blend of Booth’s words and my words. If he reads at all, it will be a skim. After all, he is a climate alarmist, and those people go straight to print in our news media, unedited. Climate “deniers” are shut out, as befits a propaganda movement. 

To: Michael Booth, Environmental Reporter, Colorado Sun
Cc: Jim Smith, writer, Real Estate Today by Jim Smith
Cc: Scott Taylor, editor, Canyon Courier

Dear Mr. Booth,

I recently stumbled on a short piece in the Canyon Courier, a small tabloid in our area. It was titled “Climate Change Evidence in Colorado.” I could not find it online though CC has a website. The article cited several questionable assertions, and was sourced to “the Sun” article you wrote, but in particular to Real Estate Today by Jim Smith. Both Mr. Taylor of CC, and Mr. Smith of RET should have footnoted their links to your piece with “tldr”, as they clearly were not diligent. Further, as I found in reading your 6,155 word price, your work should have been footnoted “sinofe, or “severely in need of editing”. Regarding climate change, due to the massive funding from government sources, it is no more now than a massive propaganda effort, with all the earmarks. There is precious little science behind it. However, every word written by every “scientist”, “pundit”, and true believer on the subject somehow finds its way to print. Thus your work titled Climate change is already happening in Colorado. Here are 10 signs we see right now.

Unlike Mr. Taylor and Mr. Smith, I read your article carefully, using a yellow highlighter. I found it full of shortcomings and developed a glossary of abbreviations to address them.

BD: Bad data
BS: Bad science
CW: Conflation of Climate Change and Weather
EA: Emotional Appeal
FC: Facts out of context
HP: Hyperbole
NC: No historic perspective offered
SP: Shaky prediction
TS: True statement
US: Unwarranted slurs
UP: Unwarranted praise.

I go forth, beginning to end, knowing that in writing to two newspaper people, this will never see light of day, perhaps not even be read by anyone despite protestations of due diligence, an antiquated phrase.

You are not the first climate writer to hear from me, nor will you be the last. Such is the state of journalism today (perhaps always) that editors don’t edit while publishers publish if the tone of the time is right and proper genuflection is made before unworthy icons espousing unstated objectives.

Below I cite your words with my notations and (my comments). This work, a fun undertaking, will also be published on my blog, Piece of Mindful, with the understanding that in the current propaganda-laden climate (poor choice of words), it will never see light of day.

Be well, do good work, live well and prosper, and now and then, pay attention to better information offered by honest skeptics.

Mark Tokarski

______________

• “Colorado’s signature ponderosas are on hospice” – SP, HP,
• “The governor just activated the drought task force, again, warning that Colorado is in the middle of its warmest year in 131 years of recordkeeping.” HP, BD
• ““We have, unfortunately, a lot of confidence that we should expect continued warming for the next several decades” SP
• “The choices we make as a society about our carbon emissions can still have a large effect on how much warming we experience” BS (95% of carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere each year is natural, only 5% from human sources.)
• “…things are about to get bananas, … And they’re already bananas.” HP
• “Human-caused climate change pushed up average Colorado temperatures 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit from 1980 to 2022, according to Colorado State University’s 2024 climate update.” BS (1: I challenge the CSU science, as it is out of step completely with the NOAA data in my possession; 2) “Human caused” neglects to mention that 95% of CO2 put in the atmosphere each year is natural, not from humans.)
• “Colorado’s average could climb 1 to 4 degrees higher within 24 years.” SP
• “… the guaranteed future of persistently hotter summers make her worry for all kinds of neighbors: pregnant women laboring in hot food service kitchens or hotel rooms, roofers scraping tar shingles at 120 degrees, children wheezing in the ozone produced by fossil fuel industries like Suncor, Xcel’s local natural gas power plant and others.” SP, BS, US
• ‘Nine of the 11 hottest Colorado years on record have happened since 2012, according to a CSU update.” FC (The Northern Hemisphere has been gradually and mildly warming since 1860 or so, when we emerged from the Little Ice Age, so that records mean nothing. After all temperatures are rising naturally!)
• “Lake Powell … the ongoing 25 year drought.” CW (Drought is a fact of life out here in the West, always has been. Droughts did not start in the year 2000. 2023 Brought significant relief around the water projects undertaken in the 20^th century in response to persistent drought. Attribution of droughts in a drought-prone area to climate change is sloppy. If in doubt, consult Palmer Drought Severity Index. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/historical-palmers/)
• “Four of the five driest water years in 128 years of records have occurred since 2000, with the winter of 2025-26 on pace to join that ignoble grouping. Northwestern Colorado summer precipitation is down 20% from the 50-year average leading up to 2000. Southwestern spring precipitation is down 22%.” CW (128 years is not much of a record. There is better data available from tree rings, historical artifacts and writing.)
• “Shallow snow readings are obviously bad for those prospects”, Marshall said. But she watches another map, one showing not snow depth, but basic snow coverage, at any depth, across the entire western half of the U.S. And frankly, those maps look horrendously red right now, as in, minimalist snow cover.” HP CW
• “’The snow is kind of our big reservoir.’” “And the snow is in serious trouble.” SP (Every February I honor David Vining Day, a British “climate scientist” (UP) at East Anglia who said in in February of 2000 that in the future snow would be a “very rare and exciting event” and that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” Since that time Great Britain has experienced five of its six snowiest years on record. That was indeed a shaky prediction. Why was he not edited? (https://realclimatescience.com/2013/10/five-of-the-six-snowiest-winters-have-occurred-since-david-viner-declared-the-end-of-snow/#gsc.tab=0)
• “Xcel Energy cut power to Evergreen during a high-wind event.” TS (I cannot help but think that this procedure is fallout from the Paradise, CA tragedy. It appears a warranted response.)
• “The Boone family is willing to do its part to adapt to climate change in Jefferson County: The more frequent wildfires, the appalling, but necessary, forest thinning to protect homes, even the electrical outages called preemptively to prevent sparking power lines in hot hurricane-force winds.” (My emphasis) HP, BS the “hurricane-force” statement is hyperbole, and forest fires vary greatly. Do as I have done, take the wildfire acreage burned in Colorado since 1998, stick it in Excel and graph it. It varies widely depending on precipitation (TS). Further, we lost our wildfire database for the lower 48 when the National Interagency Fire Center in 2021 purged all its data prior to 1983. Consequently, it is hard to say, “more frequent”. We have no extensive database to work with. (TS)
• “The global rise in human-caused greenhouse gases that create climate change…” BS, HP Shame on you for this one.
• “…increasingly intense wildfires” BS
• “ … some of the urban heat islands at most risk from accelerated temperature rises.” (Emphasis on HP), SP, NC. However, I am surprised you acknowledge UHIs, as some scientists over here on the “denier” side have noted that removal of UHIs leaves a very stable temperatures with barely any increase.
• “… while killing the most lucrative subsidies to help people switch to electric vehicles.” TS (I do not mourn this, nor do I trust Trump, lest you infer that I credit him beyond his TV acting chops. Follow him, or any politician, at your own risk.)
• “…highly polluting coal power plants” BS (It is true that at one time coal fired plants emitted dangerous pollutants, but technology overcame this problem, leaving them in league with automobiles as polluters. They emit CO2 (not a pollutant), nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter after application of state-of-the-art smokestack technologies.)
• “The looming, climate-related loss of Colorado’s entire band of ponderosa forest truly worries Gent and his birding colleagues. … If we start do start to have a climate-related loss of Colorado’s entire band of ponderosa pine forest, then we will lose the species which are absolutely dependent on ponderosa pine,” Gent said” HP, SP (There is indeed beetle kill in the ponderosa forest, as in all forests, but enough of the doomsaying! At least do us the courtesy of waiting until something happens to mourn. After all, you in the climate alarmist community are yet to make a prediction that has come true. Ponderosa pines will certainly outlive me (age 76) and you as well.)
• “In the 1970s, there were three or four frigid winter events a year, now there are only one or two, he said.” FC, NC (It was cooler in the 1970s, in fact, “climate scientists” were warning us about a pending new Ice Age during that time. However, Time Magazine’s real 1974 cover warning of an impending Ice Age has now been put down Orwell’s memory hole. We’re told that our eyes lied to us, that it never happened.)
• “Amateur climatologists…” US (Climate science is not beyond any sentient person’s grasp. All it takes is reading, thinking, classifying … which few people do.)
• “… actual climate scientists” UP (I will grant them that distinction when they make a prediction that actually comes to pass.)
• “As it’s getting warmer, everywhere, more low elevation species are moving to get away from those warming temperatures…” SP, BD (if the climate warming to any significant degree is not happening, for real, then this statement is categorically false, no matter the climate credentials of the grant-funded speaker.)
• “This majestic specimen in front of him is doomed…” SP HP (regarding ponderosa pines)
• “…we created this mess…” This gets us down to the essence of the climate alarmist movement, misanthropy. There are too many humans on Bill Gates’ planet. Let’s get rid of them and their fossil fuels! Enough of the good life.