If you live in Colorado and are one of 133,000 customers who get electricity from the Intermountain Rural Electric Association, you need to watch your mailbox for a notice that your money is being spent to support one of the most disgraceful, notorious global warming deniers and science abusers in the country.
It will probably come with a bill and will be from IREA general manager Stanley Lewandowski, Jr., and will tell you that IREA contributed $100,000 to support the research of environmental science professor Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia.
To quote the full ABC News story about this expenditure, “Michaels is one of about a dozen academics who for years have cast doubt on the science surrounding global warming while downplaying the scientifically accepted idea that humans are causing it.” He now makes a living by advocating a contrarian point of view that has long since been discredited.
Don’t let Lewandowski off the hook. Write a letter of protest to your electric cooperative’s board of directors to complain about this outrageous expenditure of your money.
If you want to suggest some useful reading to the board, I recommend The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery or Field Notes From A Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert.
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Fred Bortz — Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)