Letter to the Editor: Climate change

To the Editor:

In response to the Leslie Sand Letter to the Editor in the December 29 edition of The Standard, there were several issues in that letter about climate change that should be addressed.  First, the mention of NASA and their release of information that claims that there is a rapid increase in warming, faster than caused by natural cycles.

NASA has been notorious on their climate change “adjustments” of climate temperatures. Both UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville satellite data) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems satellite measurements) have shown no appreciable, dramatic increases or fluctuation in global temps, basically a two decade or more of no temperature increases to cause alarm. “NASA’s temperature trends are “almost 20 times larger than the satellites,” noted physicist Lubos Motl.

James Hansen, NASA’s leading global warming scientist wrote in 1999 “in the U.S. there has been little temperature change in the past 50 years, the time of rapidly increasing greenhouse gases - in fact, there was a slight cooling throughout much of the country.” Since he wrote this the satellite measurements have concurred that there has been no dramatic, rapid increase in global temperatures.

“In the past, most global warming was gradual, taking thousands of years,” wrote Leslie Sand. In my editorial on December 8, I mentioned the dramatic warming of the Middle Ages, 900 A.D. to 1400 A.D. That period did not take thousands of years, was much warmer than today, and there was no industrial revolution to feed it.  The “Climate Gate” scandal some 20 years ago, exposed emails between climate warming proponents, showing that these proponents attempted to hide this time period somehow as it destroyed their narrative on anthropogenic climate change today.

There was the mention in the Letter to the Editor by Leslie about the Permian geologic period, where there was a massive die-off, the greatest extinction event on record, and the rapid warming that contributed to the die-off.  The supposed rapid increase in global temps today could somehow be compared to this geologic period, rapid temp increases equaling life threatening consequences.  During the Permian period extreme volcanic activity in Siberia contributed to the extinction event. It took 200,000 years for this to happen, nothing at all comparable to today.

In the Sand Letter to the Editor there was the mention of reducing fossil fuel emissions by implementing “carbon pricing”. This scheme is called ‘the buying and selling of carbon credits’. Al Gore emerged as the face for this scheme. Now Al’s personal wealth increased, after leaving the Clinton administration, some 5000%. That really is nothing unusual as it seems that people entering Federal positions by election leave office extremely wealthy after many of these same elective officials enter office somewhat poor or at least not that wealthy. But with this carbon credit scheme, Al would have become a multi-billionaire with his General Investment Management firm. This firm would have been a conduit with advising and directing major corporations on the ins - and - outs of acquiring the necessary carbon credits. This is a carbon tax on those businesses and corporations that will be passed on to the taxpayer to help pay for this tax.

Let’s talk about earth orbits and tilting. As of now there is an accelerated movement of the poles. Dramatic polar shifts are believed to have caused at least one of the 5 extinction events. It is to be seen if something comes out of this, polar shifts have happened in the past. There are hundreds if not thousands of underwater volcanoes, a large number located in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. There are over 90 active volcanoes under the Antarctic ice. Scientists do not have a great deal of knowledge on the activity and contribution to our climate, their primary concern has been surface activity. The same goes for the Sun and its influence. You see man’s contributions to the climate is dwarfed by Mother Nature’s influence in our everyday life.

David M. Johnson
Waukon