To the Editor:

As one of the "handful" of parents opposed to the showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" in classrooms, I felt compelled to respond to your article and the letter to the editor submitted by Bill Johson-Miles.

First, I am puzzled by the assumption that only a very few parents are concerned. I believe there are more of them out there than you might think. Unless someone has taken a poll of Federal Way parents, I don't think one can assert how many or few there are. I did not know this topic was being covered by the school board or I would have been there to be counted among the concerned parents, as I'm sure many others would have been had they known about it.

The simple fact of the matter is the "humans vs. the earth" version of "science" so popular among the political left is just that - politics. It is inappropriate to expose students to one side of the political fence and I applaud the "conservative" school board for recognizing the need for balance and standing by their policy to maintain it. Notice I said "standing by" current policy. No new decision to "silence" this particular movie was made. Keep in mind that parents who want their children to see the movie are still free to show it to them on their own.

Mr. Johson-Miles states that there "is no opposing view to science." I beg to differ. It depends on your definition of science. The doomsday predictions of the global warming contingent are not accepted as fact by "the vast majority of scientists." In fact there is plenty of scientific evidence that the ice caps are not melting and global warming, if it exists at all is fairly insignificant. The earth has endured many periods of warming and cooling over the millennia and hasn't come to a tragic end yet-it seems unlikely that end is suddenly imminent now. I can't cover the multitude of scientists who have refuted a host of global warming assertions here but I believe I have clearly made my point that there does indeed exist "an opposing view."

Not every scientist is chasing the 25 billion dollars in federal funding that has been divvied out to global warming researchers. It is interesting to note that in the 70's a popular scientific theory asserted CO2 emissions were causing global cooling.

It is not that I don't want "children to learn how they can help save the Earth for future generations," it is that I don't want children directly influenced by the political agenda of the left-wing as part of their classroom experience.

Heidi Falck

Federal Way