Dear Lola,

When I was in Panama, I wrote letters to Pastor Paul about his views on evolution, and its pseudoscientific nemesis, intelligent design.  I enjoyed myself writing those letters, and it made me think about our own disagreements over climate change.

Although for the past 10 years we have disagreed over some of the most fundamental questions of science, I believe I can at last persuade you that you that the body of work you have argued for these years is not factual. Not only are the individual arguments you have made wrong, but the sum of the parts, collected as a whole, are dung rubbish. 

We travel writers write our experience, and my 10 year conversation with you is part of my experience, and It's important not because your arguments are unique, but rather because they are common.  More so, our debate is important because your ideas are common and because you were once a spokesperson at the United States Department of the Interior, and you were a spokesperson for a culture that abused science in a time when it was more important than ever for each of us to separate real science from politics.

I believe that your ideas on climate change come primarily from the political atmosphere you evolved in.  But my ideas on climate change have evolved through the experience of travel, on the road, in natural spaces. 

It is not my intention to debate whether climate change science is true or not. I will argue, rather, that I encourage healthy skepticism and logical discussion over what people sometimes call denialism. As I travel through the American West, I will use my experiences to explain to you where you went wrong. My goal is to mold you away from denialism, towards skepticism.

I thought up my letter to you tonight, while I'm out looking for a drink. A beer, maybe. At night, most of what you see driving in Ajo are the advertisements for Mexican car insurance vendors. 

It was still early morning when I began driving south from Phoenix, towards Arizona's international border – lovely in spring, quiet, with serene desert air.  Now here I am, worn out and cruising down the main street of Ajo, Arizona in a rented Ford.

I catch them above, just a glimpse – shapes in the night sky; a second or two of movement.  Quickly, I swerve  the car to the gas station whose quiet white neon luminescence is lighting THEM.

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