I wrote earlier about ozone depletion deniers John Ray and Sylvain Galineau. I’ve found another such denier and his name is John Lott. Lott wrote a positive review\* of Environmental Overkill, a book written by Dixy Lee Ray with Lou Guzzo. In his review, Lott calls ozone depletion an “environmental myth” and a “scare story”.
Now, Lott’s false statements about ozone depletion might have been forgivable if Ray had made a good case against ozone depletion, but the quality of the science and scholarship in her work is appalling. Robert Parson has written a devastating critique of her chapters on ozone depletion. Parsons categorizes the problems with Ray’s work into four categories
- Basic misconceptions about science. For example, the claim that CFCs cannot rise to the stratosphere because they are heavier than air. If this were true all the heavy gasses in the atmosphere would collect at sea level and the air would be unbreathable there.
- False assertions that require a more detailed knowledge of the technical literature to refute. For example, the claim that explosive volcanic eruptions are a major source of stratospheric chlorine.
- Statements presented in a misleading context and surrounded with false information.
- Shoddy scholarship, ignoring the relevant scientific literature and instead uncritically relying on such bizarre sources as publications by Lyndon LaRouche’s associates
Suffice it to say that checking out any of Ray’s claims against her alleged sources would have shown them to be false. But Lott described her work as “solid” and endorsed it.