Culture

LA Times Bars Climate Change Skeptics From Letters Page

No dissenting opinions for you

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The Los Angeles Times is giving the cold shoulder to global warming skeptics.

Paul Thornton, editor of the paper's letters section, recently wrote a letter of his own, stating flatly that he won't publish some letters from those skeptical of man's role in our planet's warming climate. In Thornton's eyes, those people are often wrong—and he doesn't print obviously wrong statements.

"Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published," Thornton wrote. "Saying 'there's no sign humans have caused climate change' is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy."

What amounts to a ban on discourse about climate change stirred outrage among scientists who have written exactly that sort of letter.