Page 14 THE VILLADOM TIMES IV • November 14, 2012 sions as a reality, while three percent did not. People do not need to work for NASA to understand that 97 percent versus three percent is not exactly the same as half who agree and half who disagree. Global warming opponents cite what is called the Oregon Petition in which 31,000 scientists signed a statement questioning global warming. Hockenberry cited information that many of the Oregon Petition signers had a mere bachelor’s degree. (A Ph.D. is generally considered entry-level for serious science.) Some of the sciences these petition signers had trained in included psychology and the social sciences, which have no direct application to climatology or meteorology. It must be added that those “sciences” that do not depend on statistics and peer review are heavily dependent on opinionated experts. The South is full of experts in the social sciences who refuse to believe the desire to abolish or retain slavery had anything to do with the Civil War. Some northern historians refuse to acknowledge that tariffs that made some northern industries rich and kept southern planters in debt were also a factor, though not to the degree that slavery was. The Confederate capture of Fort Pillow is still described as a massacre of black soldiers and their women and children, while testimony in federal courts shows that most casualties were black federal soldiers shot fighting against long odds or trying to escape and that women and children played little or no part in the casualties. The strong possibility of a war with Japan had been in the newspapers for five days before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, and Honolulu had been fitted out with slit trenches and civilian air raid wardens, yet interviews constantly quote people who talk about how surprised they were. Sadly enough, the white civilians from Hawaii who told reporters they had seen six-foot “Prussian” pilots being marched through the streets of Honolulu with their hands up have vanished. We can have a great time chuckling and shaking our heads about how memory plays tricks where history is concerned, because history is about the past. Science is about what may happen in the future and we cannot afford to indulge in massacres of women and children that never took place or the capture of Prussian pilots who never existed. People who wanted to make things rough on the South after the war, against the advice of Abraham Lincoln, George McClellan, and Carl Schurz, needed those murdered women and children, and people who wanted to justify FDR’s flirtations with war in the Atlantic may have needed those six-foot Prussian pilots, but they never existed. Global warming exists, but some people need it not to. Hockenberry found that some of the “experts” he interviewed had worked to promote the idea that second-hand smoke was not dangerous. Take a moment to remember those days and who benefited. I lost my father, a favorite uncle, and a couple of good friends to cigarette smoke, and I remember. Some of the anti-global-warming money that followed the anti-second-hand smoke money can be traced back to the owners of coal mines and commercial logging companies. The gasoline companies that operate service stations have also been cited, but some of them pulled their funding of the anti-global warming campaign, either out of guilty consciences or because enough intelligent people drive cars to single out those petroleum companies that donate large amounts of money to morally reprehensible propaganda campaigns. The propagandists will have their own consciences to answer for, but apparently being able to fly to Paris on random weekends means more to them than the fact that Venice may soon be under water. The idea that they might have to answer to the electorate is a dream. No candidate of either party ever took on Big Tobacco, and no candidate of either party is likely to take on Big Coal, Big Lumber, or Big Petroleum. Hockenberry cited the sad case of Bob Inglis of North Carolina, a church-going Christian and a Republican who let it slip that he believed carbon emissions had something to do with global warming. Inglis lost the next primary 79-21 and is no longer in Congress. We could have used him there. Among real experts, the vote on the reality of carbon emissions as a factor in global warming is not 50-50, but 97-3 in favor of reality. However, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of them time. If you want to become a multi-millionaire without inventing a computer language, those are not bad odds. My next SUV may be a gondola. This year marks only the second time in my life that Halloween had to be rescheduled -- and I had a really scary costume ready on Oct. 31! This is also the second time we have wasted half a paycheck on food that spoiled because we had no power to run the refrigerator and freezer. Way back in 2007, Newt Gingrich stated in public and on camera that global warming, once known as the greenhouse effect, was a serious problem and that carbon emissions had to be deal with by concerted government action. Yes, Virginia, Newt Gingrich said it, too! Nobody could have convinced me of it, but I saw the film clip on TV a couple of weeks ago. Cut to 2012. Global warming was scarcely mentioned by either the Republicans or the Democrats. During the intervening years, a group of talking heads, including a handful of maverick scientists and a far greater number of people posing as scientists, reportedly convinced almost half of the American public that global warming, if it exists at all, has nothing do to do with carbon emissions and that the whole thing is probably due to the same sort of natural climate changes that produced the Ice Ages. Since neither party can afford to throw away that many votes, global warning was not only pushed to the back burner, but somehow fell off the stove without making any noise when it hit the floor, as far as electable officials were concerned. Consider the last few weeks. Remember how New York City had to close down bridges and subways. People fought to get into the last train out of town, as if the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had crawled up out of the Atlantic and was on his way to the Hudson for a drink of fresh water before lunch -- and the commuters knew they were that lunch. Remember how you worried if you would have enough gasoline to keep driving to work -- if your workplace even had power. We can do this every autumn if the climate changes brought on by excessive carbon emissions keep up. We did it last autumn. We may do it next autumn. We may do it every autumn. Halloween at any fixed date may be a thing of the past, but the horror remains. The fact that heavy snow fell while the trees were in heavy leaf on Oct. 29, 2011 accounted for last year’s week of power outages and outrages. This year, unseasonably warm air contributed to Hurricane Sandy -- what has been called Frankenstorm – a great Halloween name if ever there was one. People who encounter comments about global warming or its alleged non-existence often hear that just as many scientists disagree with carbon emissions as a cause of global warming as those who agree with it. John Hockenberry, a responsible reporter working for the PBS show “Frontline,” ran these numbers past a few genuine scientists and found out that, according to a survey of the National Academy of Scientists, 97 percent of those who responded accept global warming due to carbon emis- Has global warming throttled Halloween? Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: I would like to express my personal thanks to Mayor Bill Laforet for his attention and concern during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I am thankful that many of our residents were not affected by Sandy as much as others. Mahwah was spared, especially when you saw the devastation suffered along our shoreline. As one of the 20,000 in Mahwah without power and heat for eight days, I can tell you it was a test of endurance during that time, but it could have been worse. I’m also thankful our mayor suspended his campaigning to fully dedicate his attention to the coordination of relief efforts for Mahwah residents. Unlike his opponent, there were no Laforet election volunteer calls, no Laforet election robo calls, and no Laforet campaign literature stuffed in our mailboxes during this crisis. His opponent’s only concern was to get elected. He never mentioned Hurricane Sandy nor expressed any concern for Mahwah residents in any of his calls. As some of my neighbors have expressed to me, Mayor Laforet’s daily phone updates were our only lifeline to Applauds mayor, emergency services the status of efforts in getting back power when no utility trucks were in sight. Our church still had power, and Mayor Laforet visited to provide an update. He fought hard to get Governor Christie, Bergen County Executive Kathe Donovan and others to get on the backs of O&R to get power restored so the schools could open. There were a lot of segments to orchestrate a very coordinated relief effort. Thanks, Bill, for your true concern for Mahwah residents. And, if they are still in the area, my sincere appreciation to all the out-of-state utility workers, especially to the crews of Georgia Power and Light with whom I spoke on Ridge Road. Southern hospitality at its best! Lastly, I would like to send a huge “thank you!” to the fire and police departments, ambulance corps, the Mahwah Office of Emergency Management, and CERT personnel for their presence in this storm. There was a tremendous volume of emergency calls that required their response, all in the wake of a hurricane. My prayers and thanks go out to all of you. Brenda Calandrillo Mahwah Maryrest dedication (continued from page 6) township code because the facility is considered a house of worship where religious services will be performed, was lowered by seven feet from 66.6 feet high to 59.7 feet. The intensity of the lighting on 15-foot high poles at the entrance to the mausoleum area was increased to three foot-candles from the required 1.5 foot-candles for safety reasons, but the light fixtures were to be shielded downward so as not to shine on adjacent properties. In addition, the number of trees to be removed from the site was reduced from 741 to 710. Some 478 replacement trees will be planted, and larger evergreen shrubs were to be planted behind the stone walls at the entrance. It was also agreed that clusters of trees would be planted along Campgaw Road to help screen the cemetery from the residences across that road. The entrance access to the mausoleum area was to be limited to “right in and right out only” in response to a township police report on the plan, and the burial plots on the existing portion of the cemetery property that borders Seminary Drive and Campgaw Road will remain untouched and the Seminary Drive and Campgaw Road entrances to the cemetery remain in place.