Help Us Help Needy Children

To the Editors:

The WAVE program continues to enjoy the amazing support of President Dye and her administration, along with support from several current and former faculty members and friends. WAVE (Words Are Very Enjoyable) is a summer academic program open to all children in Oberlin and in Lorain County, but it especially seeks to improve the education of "At Risk" children, not all of whom are black. On a 24/7 basis, these children may get as much one-on-one help as they like over a 10-week period, free of charge, thanks to Oberlin College and President Dye.

Dinah Shepherd, Class of 2000, spearheaded an event at Rust United

Methodist Church, located in a predominantly black area of Oberlin, where almost $600 was raised for WAVE on Monday night. I can never thank sufficiently Dinah and her acolytes (the children dancers, singers, musicians, etc.) and attendees who made that evening a most special, splendid and memorable evening for me, my wife, Annette, and our children.

In general, WAVE touches the lives of about 100 children at some point during the summer. Many, but not all, are very unmotivated, unfocused and occasionally unruly. But fortunately, WAVE's staff of black, white, etc. Oberlin College students are often some of the most caring, dedicated and effective tutors imaginable, and they love the sometimes daunting challenges they face.

You can help them face these daunting challenges by making out a

tax-deductible $1 check or more to: Oberlin College-WAVE Program. Send the check to the Oberlin College Development Office in Bosworth Hall. If you let me know of your contribution (not the amount), I'll thank you personally. The College will, of course, send you an official acknowledgement of your support. Additionally, you may allow me to put your name on WAVE's volunteer list. Finally, just spread the word that children are invited to get all the free tutoring they need this summer by contacting me at 775-8479 or at 775-8923.

On behalf of WAVE, I am effusive in my thanks and appreciation to President Dye, Dan Gardner for the Center for Service and Learning, other contributors to WAVE and to Dinah Shepherd, a white African-American Studies major, for their support of, belief in and dedication to WAVE's goal to raise ultimately the academic standards of all children in and around Oberlin, particularly the standards of black males, to a first-rate level that does Oberlin College proud. To all of these supporters of WAVE, as well as to future ones, I will remain deeply, inextricably indebted to them.

--Booker C. Peek, Associate Professor, African-American Studies Department

Earth Week Lecturer Deserves a Closer, Critical Look

To the Editors:

Here is another take on Ross Gelbspan's lecture during the college's Earth Week:

Journalist Ross Gelbspan received vigorous and prolonged applause following his talk on global warming. Evidently, Mr. Gelbspan had convinced a large part of his audience that global warming is real, dangerous and only disputed by a "handful" of climate scientists who are being paid by a conspiracy of coal and oil companies.

Mr. Gelbspan is the author of two books based on his discoveries of conspiracies. He claims to be a "Pulitzer Prize winner." He is not.

The archives of the Pulitzer Group (www.pulitzer.org//Archive/ archive.html) show his name is missing from the list of winners since 1917. If Mr. Gelbspan got a Pulitzer, he didn't get it from the folks making the awards.

Mr. Gelbspan's conspiracy thesis and his reputation as a journalist are also damaged by the fact that he hasn't followed good journalistic practice by contacting those he attacks. Dr. Fred Singer and the Science and the Environment Policy Project are prime targets of Gelbspan's conspiracy theory. Dr. Singer says that Gelbspan "never visited our (SEPP) offices, spoke to anyone on our staff and never contacted Fred Singer for an interview to cover point-by-point the claims he made later in his book."

Lacking training in science, Mr. Gelbspan is unable to rebut the data and findings of science. He resorts to ad hominem attacks on the messengers and the sources of their support. Like many environmental activists, Mr. Gelbspan doesn't seem to recognize the possibility that objective (scientific) truth exists.

There are several scientific findings that go without rebuttal by global warming believers. Among these findings are: (1) data that show the surface temperature trends to be dependent on population density in the area around the measurement sites, whereas surface temperature records from remote areas show little or no warming trend; (2) the close correlation of temperature history with the length of the solar cycle; (3) the close correlation of cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover with the solar cycle; (4) the lack of correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and temperature history.

Global warming believers place more faith in computer model predictions than do those doing the modeling. The models are still predicting tropospheric warming greater than warming at the earth's surface, whereas actual measurements show the reverse to be true. Most importantly, Mr. Gelbspan's claim that only a handful of coal-subsidized and oil-subsidized scientists are disputing global warming is demonstrably false. One hundred climate specialists signed the Leipzig Declaration criticizing the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Among the 19,000 signatures gathered by the Petition Project (against implementation of the Kyoto Protocol) were the signatures of about 2,300 specialists in fields related to global warming. Fifty atmospheric physicists and meteorologists signed the Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming disagreeing with the policies being pursued by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

I look forward to the time when a climate scientist is invited to Oberlin to speak about what is known about "global warming." I think we've heard more than enough from the non-scientific, political side of the issue.

--David C. Greene, OC '49 (Physics)

Top 10 Reasons to Enjoy Being Being an Oberlin Alumnus

To the Editors:

At this time of year, you may be experiencing acute anxiety about life

beyond Oberlin. Never fear. There are so many reasons to enjoy being an Oberlin alum. Here are my top 10:

10. You become a member of the Oberlin Alumni Association, a truly august and distinguished body.

9. You receive the Oberlin Alumni Magazine, which is new and improved in both design and content. (Yes, you will catch yourself reading the class notes.)

8. You get an e-mail forwarding address at "world.oberlin.edu" that will follow you through your 16 moves in the next five years.

7. You can get together with other Obies in your new home through local alumni groups.

6. You have the chance to participate in the Alumni Council by becoming a regional coordinator to organize those local gatherings, a class president or class agent, a coordinator for alumni admissions interviewing, a member of an Alumni Association committee or leader of an affiliate group.

5. You get to meet Midge Brittingham, Margaret Erikson, Dale Preston and the other terrific staff people in the Alumni Office.

4. After you make millions in a dotcom startup, you find yourself thinking, "Maybe there should be a new building on Tappan Square named after me."

3. You think of the word "dye" as a noun that refers to pigment or color.

2. You get to come back to campus and see how little (or how much) has

changed.

1. And the number one reason to enjoy being an alum: no more Oberlin finals to take or papers to write!

If you're a graduating senior, welcome to the Alumni Association. If you are already enjoying life as an alum, welcome back to campus.

--Diane E. Kenty, OC '77, President of the Alumni Association,