Letter: A moderate point of view about global warming (Printed Feb. 15, 2008)
Editor:
I think it’s about time that someone with a moderate point of view stand up on the soapbox and speak about global warming. I have read all four editorials up to this point and I feel that both points of view are valid and yet invalid at the same time.
Yes, there is evidence that global warming does exist. This is fact and not conjecture. It is simply obvious that global temperatures have increased over the past 300 or so years. Experts agree that there is a global warming trend but is increasing from a low point since observation has begun. What is very suspicious and very controversial is the substance of the cause. The premise is that since about 1850 when the industrial age began we have flooded our environment with carbon pollution, and other gasses, therefore causing our planet to heat up by the process of the “Green house effect.” The Mann hockey stick graph shows a fast increase in temperatures. Global warming conspirators use this graph as a tool to prove their point but even Dr. Mann states that the graph is a small time shot of Earth’s temperatures and is not proof of human caused global warming. Al Gore never mentions this when he uses it as proof in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Scientist’s also use another very misleading tool, ice cores, to prove that man has caused the existing global warming trend. After further analysis these ice cores show natural temperature changes over time since the days of Rome. In fact it is actually colder today. We are simply seeing a natural warming trend.
Believe it or not, global warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This is the greatest deception in the history of science. Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. Water vapor and methane gasses pose a far greater threat.
Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. “It is a cold fact: the global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species,” wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.
I would also like to address the “Lesson Plan” that Jason Wise so eloquently wrote. His rhetoric in regards to things like; “Quote people out of context”, “Claim to have lots of additional information”, “Cherry pick information” and “Provide bogus or outdated information”. These are lessons that both sides can learn from. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” could learn a lot from Jason. Since the entire documentary was full of several misleading quotes and facts. Take Mr. Mann’s graph for example.
Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.
As a “scientist”, or at least someone who has been taught the scientific method, I believe that more research is needed before we allow the left to pass laws and force us to buy “Global Friendly” products. We also need to be intelligent enough to be conscientious about our environment and be careful of what the right has to sell us. So far in this editorial debate I have read nothing but vitriol from the side that support human caused global warming. We need facts not emotions and hidden agendas. In the beginning Mr. Cole was simply speaking out that there is a continuing debate over this issue and that “Global Warming” should not be taught as dogma or doctrine. I support his position about whether it should be taught with such a closed minded position. Schools are about education and not brain washing our youth for liberal causes. That’s just my opinion.
Ralph O’Brien IV
Kennebunk
I think it’s about time that someone with a moderate point of view stand up on the soapbox and speak about global warming. I have read all four editorials up to this point and I feel that both points of view are valid and yet invalid at the same time.
Yes, there is evidence that global warming does exist. This is fact and not conjecture. It is simply obvious that global temperatures have increased over the past 300 or so years. Experts agree that there is a global warming trend but is increasing from a low point since observation has begun. What is very suspicious and very controversial is the substance of the cause. The premise is that since about 1850 when the industrial age began we have flooded our environment with carbon pollution, and other gasses, therefore causing our planet to heat up by the process of the “Green house effect.” The Mann hockey stick graph shows a fast increase in temperatures. Global warming conspirators use this graph as a tool to prove their point but even Dr. Mann states that the graph is a small time shot of Earth’s temperatures and is not proof of human caused global warming. Al Gore never mentions this when he uses it as proof in his movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Scientist’s also use another very misleading tool, ice cores, to prove that man has caused the existing global warming trend. After further analysis these ice cores show natural temperature changes over time since the days of Rome. In fact it is actually colder today. We are simply seeing a natural warming trend.
Believe it or not, global warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This is the greatest deception in the history of science. Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. Water vapor and methane gasses pose a far greater threat.
Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. “It is a cold fact: the global cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species,” wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.
I would also like to address the “Lesson Plan” that Jason Wise so eloquently wrote. His rhetoric in regards to things like; “Quote people out of context”, “Claim to have lots of additional information”, “Cherry pick information” and “Provide bogus or outdated information”. These are lessons that both sides can learn from. Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” could learn a lot from Jason. Since the entire documentary was full of several misleading quotes and facts. Take Mr. Mann’s graph for example.
Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.
As a “scientist”, or at least someone who has been taught the scientific method, I believe that more research is needed before we allow the left to pass laws and force us to buy “Global Friendly” products. We also need to be intelligent enough to be conscientious about our environment and be careful of what the right has to sell us. So far in this editorial debate I have read nothing but vitriol from the side that support human caused global warming. We need facts not emotions and hidden agendas. In the beginning Mr. Cole was simply speaking out that there is a continuing debate over this issue and that “Global Warming” should not be taught as dogma or doctrine. I support his position about whether it should be taught with such a closed minded position. Schools are about education and not brain washing our youth for liberal causes. That’s just my opinion.
Ralph O’Brien IV
Kennebunk
Right to the point. I agree.
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