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To the editor:

Open letter to the board of directors of Tri-State Generation and Transmission:

Since reading the Durango Herald article: "Tri-State funds global-warming critic" on Oct. 22, I've visited the New Hope Environmental Services Web site several times. It's been a sad vocation. Patrick Michaels' self-described "advocacy science consulting firm" is certainly about advocacy. But, it's a single-minded shell game sort of advocacy. Here are a couple examples from NHES's World Climate Report's most recent blog.

"The (claim that) Gulf Stream is driven both by the rotation of the Earth and by a deep-water current called the Thermohaline Circulation is false." The Gulf Stream is a wind-driven phenomenon (as explained in a famous 1948 paper by Henry Stommel). Besides being nonsense, this is a total misrepresentation of Stommel's work as a search on the Internet proves. Over succeeding decades, Stommel published numerous papers detailing Thermohaline Circulation.

"Shut-off (of the Gulf Stream) would imply repeal of the law of conservation of angular momentum." No scientist is implying a "shut-off" as in faucet. It's a disruption, all the angular momentum would be redirected and conserved.

This type of weird misrepresentation can be found in nearly every article I read through. Just as bad, NHES displays a belligerent attitude toward anything concerned climate-change researchers present. Science is supposed to be about exchanging information, listening and learning, not about he who shouts loudest wins.

Patrick Michaels is a master at taking a sliver of truth -- usually out of context -- then myopically morphing it into his illusion of the whole truth and nothing but, never once acknowledging complexities nor detailing claims with accessible data. Nowhere on its Web site does NHES try to comprehensively explain anything about weather dynamics. Their only message: all is fine with our climate and nothing should impede business as usual.

Do the board members who granted NHES $50,000 actually believe we're still living in the blissful '50s, with limitless horizons for all? I see this act of supporting willful ignorance as another example of thoughtless greed-born contempt for our children's future. Why did they do it?

Peter Miesler

Durango