To the Editor:
Last year scientists from the UW Madison spoke at the T.B. Scott library, advocating that man is causing dangerous global warming. I asked Dr. Ankur Desai if the methods for adjusting observed temperature measurements for each of the ground temperature monitoring stations was available to others. He responded with a resounding, “Yes.” So-called “skeptic scientists” have been unable to get the methods, however. Last month Dr. S. Fred Singer stated that Michael Mann will not even give him his data whereby he constructed the fraudulent “hockey stick.”
Three people spoke at the library this March. One presenter showed a graphic with the headline, “Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree” that: (here there were four bullet points listed.) The last point was “Sixteen of the last 17 years were the hottest on record.” However, the surveys that were done whereby the 97 percent number originated were done several years ago (the major survey by Cook et. al. was published in 2013.) So those scientists were able to know what the temperature was in future years? Ridiculous! The bullet point was clearly made up out of thin air. When I pointed this out, the presenter flat out lied that the fourth bullet point was not what the graphic showed about 97 percent of scientists agreeing to nor what she stated.
About the 97 percent that the Cook study reported “agree that human activity is very likely causing most of the current global warming:” The reviewers looked at 11,944 abstracts of scientific papers. Cook excluded 7,930 papers because they expressed no opinion on the matter. They marked 3,896 papers as agreeing that man causes “some” warming. They marked 64 papers as agreeing that humans cause “most” warming. Only 41 papers actually stated that humans cause “most” of the current warming.
So the true percentage of scientists that actually stated that man is causing most of the current warming was 0.3 percent, not 97 percent. Yet the 97 percent is repeated often by the dishonest mainstream news media even after that figure has been exposed in the literature as false.
Some science: Carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere through the “greehouse effect.” The earth absorbs energy from the visible light coming from the sun. It then radiates energy toward outer space in the form of infrared electromagnetc radiation. Carbon dioxide absorbs some of that radiation in the infrared spectrum at two very narrow wavelength bands, resulting in some warming of the atmosphere. At approximately 500 parts per million in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide will have absorbed all the outgoing infrared radiation being emmitted in those two narrow wavelength bands. So carbon dioxide can no longer keep warming the atmosphere at concentrations higher than 500 ppm. But the warming scientists keep up the folly of calculating an estimate of the “climate sensitivity” to carbon dioxide. That is defined as the temperature increase that will be caused by each doubling of the concentration of carbon dioxide (from the current 400 ppm to 800 ppm, for example). Again, this is pure folly!
Around two weeks ago a poll reported that 60 percent of Americans believe that man-made warming will harm them. What will cause harm is the decreased standard of living resulting from policies implemented to reduce man’s carbon emissions. That affects me!
Lowell Howard
Merrill
To the Editor:
A reflection for Earth Day, April 22:
How would we celebrate this special day? Maybe it rather should be a day of reflecting than celebrating, which hopefully would also lead us to positive action.
Living in these times makes it very urgent that we seriously consider the fact that we Americans use more resources (taken locally and from many countries) than any other nation in the world.
So far, we still can and do pretty much ignore the consequences of our behavior. Here in the North, the air is pretty much clean, we have enough water, the gas pumps are full, so are the grocery stores with numerous choices for our spoiled appetites and the poor people are also supposedly taken care of with food stamps and the help of St. Vini’s and the food pantries. We donate, we are good.
But it really doesn’t take a Harvard scientist to figure out that excessive consumerism, fueled with nonrenewable energy, which in turn makes for waste and toxins, is not sustainable and cannot go on forever. What kind of Earth will our children inherit from us?
Needless to say, the protection of our Earth, our common Home is not a priority of our president Donald Trump, which means it is more than ever up to us, everyone here and now living on this Earth to voluntarily live more simply, more mindfully, to share and help each other, to organize and demand from our government to protect our environment without which there is no life!
Our wonderful public library is in the process of putting solar panels on their building. I hope that this good example will lead to a willingness of citizens and elected officials to install solar power to many more buildings in our towns, a step in the right direction, though technology alone is not going to solve the problem.
Our involvement in the healing of our planet and all that lives and thrives on it is a moral, ethical, spiritual, personal, national and multinational political issue.
If you love your children, animals, plants and the Earth herself, get involved! There are several environmental groups “sprouting” up in our own town and county. Plant a tree, grow food and read Pope Francis “Encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home.” He wrote it for all of us and writes a whole lot better than I do.
Susanna Juon-Gilk
Merrill