Readers' Comments

in newspapers are, I find, generally not readable. Even when the essay writer is a scholar/scientist, seemingly ordinary people feel free to argue against facts. Only because I know the writer did I read some of the comment in response to David Haskell's "The Seasons Aren't What They Used to Be" published in the New York Times.

Not all of them, mind you, because a few readers troll so freely and so illogically that I grow itchy to beat a fast exit. For example, "Expatico" wrote this:

Haskell asks, "Why do we not act?" Because, Mr. Haskell, we like our cars, our central heating, our big-box stores, refrigeration, electricity, airplane travel, modern medicine, television and iPhones much more than the prospect of returning to subsistence farming. Because the promise of "green energy," which I've been hearing about for four decades, remains but a figment of the Left's religious imagination. Because "sustainable agriculture" would only produce a fraction of what "fossil-fuel enhanced" agriculture can generate, thanks to fertilizers, pesticides and labor-saving machinery, so hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, would starve to death. Because human beings, whether in India or China, are hard-wired to acquire more, not less, and will happily mouth environmental platitudes while buying yet another big-screen television. Because, Mr. Haskell, nobody wants to go back to pre-Industrial civilization. 

Do you?

I confess that I am a bit cheeky or snarky myself, but honestly -- I can't help wondering why some folks even read the papers. Is it simply to express anger? Or make a smart retort? Or get their names/pseudonyms in print?

I suppose Expatico would question even the expertise of this 16-year-old and her Australian Shepherd, whom she has trained: