Global Warming? Yes, but…
Do I want clean air? Yes, I breathe it. Do I want clean water? Yes, I drink it. I do my part to keep the environment clean, recycle and I appreciate it when others do the same. Since not all people are so appreciative of what we have, I support anti-pollution efforts. I support the concept of Earth Day. I don't want to burn down the rain forest.
However, I don't buy the panic that Al Gore and the government are in over global warming, climate change or whatever they call it this week. Climate change is normal. When I took geology in college, we learned about the Earth’s climate cycles. The climate cycles into an Ice Age every 100,000 years. Within these cycles, for a period of 15-20,000 years the Earth warms, the glaciers melt and the Earth becomes temperate. The last ice age ended about 15,000 years ago. The above chart shows we currently have approximately the same amount of ice as during the previous warming about 120,000 years ago.
Notice how the chart looks like an EKG, with up and down cycles. These cycles coincide with a phenomenon known as Milankovitch Cycles. These are caused by the way the Earth’s orbit changes in relationship with the Sun, the way Earth’s tilt changes and the way the Earth wobbles on its axis. http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm
In Earth’s recent history, it has only recently returned to the average temperature that was experienced during Medieval times. Since then, we have been through a “little ice age” and the Earth started warming up again in the late 1800’s. The Earth’s warming can justifiably be attributed to the normal climate cycles experienced throughout Earth’s history.
According to Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama (Huntsville), "...the Earth was evidently coming out of a relatively cold period in the 1800s so that warming in the past century may be part of this natural recovery." Other scientists can only attribute 0.02% of the warming to mankind’s impact on the planet.
We do not need a Cap and Trade program that will, as President Obama says, "… necessarily greatly increase the cost of energy." They want to ration the use of carbon, taxing large users of fossil fuels such as utility companies and using the money to support new “green” industries. Based on the way the stimulus money has been distributed, I believe this money will be used to control who and how this industry is developed. The government does not have the expertise to manage the country’s energy supply.
And, why has the government been so opposed to nuclear energy. France produces 80% of its electricity from nuclear plants. We have the technology to do the same and completely eliminate the use of coal within 20 years.
Why don’t we develop a NASA style program? Fund a research effort to discover the new materials and processes that will clean up the planet and then license the technology to private industry to use and develop it. There have been a host of products and medical discoveries that have been made as a result of the space program.
Don’t get me wrong. We need to clean up the planet and the US is doing a good job of it. Just DON’T PANIC and rush into an expensive program that we can’t afford and will support special interests.
Art Rouse,
December 19, 2009
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