I received the following e-mail this afternoon from a student in a midwestern state. I omit her name and hometown but otherwise reproduce the e-mail in its entirety.

My name XXXXX I am a student from XXXX and I am work on a project for animal science. I would appreciate your opinion on some questions I have about global warming.

1. How could we stop it?
2. Why is it starting?
3. What is being done about this?
4. Where did it start?
5. Who is doing this?

I would appreciate if you would send me a e-mail back to me by December 22
Thank you so much for your time 

I’ll let Terry Stoops evaluate the grammar and punctuation errors. Other issues generated more concern for me.

First, why did this student write to me? It’s likely that she found my name and e-mail address on a news release associated with a report on global warming. That’s fine, but it should be clear from any such release that I’m not the expert. While I think my opinions are sound, there’s no reason for anyone to assign them particular value outside my limited areas of expertise.

Second, the questions reveal a clear bias. If those are the top five questions about global warming that interest you, you clearly believe there’s a problem, that someone deserves blame, and that someone must do something about the problem.

Here’s my response:

Ms. XXXXXX:

Thank you for your e-mail and for your request. Good luck with your animal science project.

Before I address any questions you have presented, it might make sense for me to point out that I?m not a scientist or a climate expert in any way. I am communications director for the John Locke Foundation, a North Carolina-based free market think tank.

I can answer questions based on the knowledge I have, but that knowledge is limited. I?m not sure that anything I share with you would be useful for your project.

Can you tell me how you came across my e-mail address? Is it connected to a particular press release or report? If so, perhaps I can try to arrange for the expert quoted in that release to try to help answer your questions.

In the meantime, I would suggest that some additional questions might help you develop a more thorough report.

  • Is the earth warming now? If not, when is the last year for which warming is documented? If the earth is warming, how much? How much is it expected to warm in the next 10 years? 20 years? 100 years?
  • If the earth is warming, is the level of warming dangerous? If so, why? How do we know?
  • If the earth is warming, who or what is responsible? If people bear some responsibility, how much?
  • (To follow your question ?How could we stop it??) What would it cost society to stop global warming? Is it cost-effective to try to stop it?
  • How much impact do the following items have on reducing or reversing global warming: driving hybrid cars, using special light bulbs, using more renewable energy sources?

Many more questions could help lead to a thorough report. The point is that your questions suggest that global warming is a problem, that someone ?is doing this,? and that something needs to be done to stop it. If you step back from those premises, you might find that the picture is not quite as cut-and-dried.

Thanks again for your note, and best of luck with your project.

If the student writes back requesting more information, I’ll likely send her here, here, and here.