Mike Lukovich’s Jan. 11 cartoon depicts climate-catastrophe skeptics as unlettered boobs who seize upon cold weather as refuting global warming. But the truth is that a great many skeptics are Nobel laureates, scientists, engineers and others whose grasp of mathematics and physical science enables them to see that alarmist “science” is not scientific.

Since the last glaciation, around 10,000 years ago, temperature averages have been both higher and lower than the current multiyear average. The 20th century’s temperature rise simply continued recovery from an unusually cold period toward temperatures that by most accounts are still less than those of the Medieval, Roman, Minoan and previous optima.

Those optima were culminations of similar recoveries; yet alarmists claimed that the current recovery can be explained only by atmospheric CO2 increase. They scoffed at the more sober analysts, who knew that statistics show the 20th century increases to be indistinguishable from natural variations of the type that happened long before CO2 increases.

Then came this century, and alarmists suddenly needed an explanation for the lack of warming. They seized upon natural variation — which they had previously dismissed. This is why recent frigid conditions are relevant. They show how specious alarmists’ arguments have been.

And they are the least among many such facts. The Star’s more-numerate readers may want to investigate, for instance, why rocket scientists have urged NASA to disavow its alarmist wing’s baseless claims. Other readers should at least ask themselves why the government-grant hacks who get the press coverage almost always refuse to debate knowledgeable skeptics.

Joseph H. Born

Indianapolis