Open Forum: a response

Two champions of global warming responded to my challenge. I will summarize their points and then address them one by one.

These points:

 CO2 insulates like Lowe’s high-efficiency windows.

 Some 13,926 of 13,950 papers on AGW support CO2 -caused Global Warming. (AGW is Nick Snow’s acronym for Anthropogenic Climate Change. Doesn't fit but looks impressive.)

 Animals are migrating.

 AGW causes bad weather.

 “Greenhouse gases” block radiation like a car window.

 The SO2 released by volcanoes filters sunlight while CO2 doesn’t.

 The sun’s peak radiation is not filtered by CO2 or other “greenhouse” gases because it contains no infrared.

 CO2 levels were lower and much better before industry revolted.

 Mammoths weren’t frozen quickly in the spring but slowly in the fall.

An impressive collection of points which must represent Nick’s choice from the 13,926 papers supporting AGW, including the rebuttals to those few who dared speak out against AGW. I will respond to each point in order.

 CO2 is a poor insulator as gases go. Those windows Ralph Phillips referenced use Argon gas plus a radiation blocker. But Earth is surrounded by a vacuum and the composition of our atmosphere has no impact on the conduction of heat compared to the perfect insulation of space. No heat leaves our planet except by radiation.

 As a scientist, Nick knows that “peer reviewed” is code for the papers not censored. The motto “Publish or Perish” comes with a caveat, “Don’t rock the boat.” Once the anointed leader takes a position, any dissent leads to professional disaster. Once President Eisenhower declared that evolution would be taught instead of creation nearly 100 percent of scientists and teachers publicly supported evolution regardless of what they personally believed. Peer pressure and intimidation are the tools of politicians, not real scientists. Our current president and Gore are politicians.

 The migration of animals is a fact, its interpretation an opinion. Animals adjust well to weather and long-term climate changes. It’s the cool-downs that historically have frozen mammoths in place and caused starvation.

 Climate change will be blamed for bad weather. The same edition of The Star that included Nick’s response reported that more snow and less snow would be caused by AGW. They predict the ice caps will either melt or expand. Every weather pattern current and predicted has been blamed on AGW, except for the beneficial warming that brought us out of the Ice Age.

 CO2 is not like a car window and Earth is not like a car with its windows rolled up. Both the car and the parking lot get hot in the sun, and cool off when the sun goes down. The infrared radiation escapes through the same windows it entered. If sunlight contained no infrared, this would be a cold, dead planet.

 Both SO2 and CO2 affect sunlight, but it is good that CO2 is stable. As part of the circle of life, it is absorbed by plants and converted to O2 , habitat, fuel, food, and other wonders of creation. It is continually recycled — we hope it’s around for thousands of years because our life is carbon-based.

 CO2 and other “colorless greenhouse gases” do affect sunlight. This is why you are more likely to get sunburned at high elevations, in the summer, or at midday when sun travels through less atmosphere. Those “greenhouse gases” Nick says have no effect on sunlight filter its whole spectrum including UV and infrared. Contrary to Nick’s statement, the sun’s peak radiation does not change by season or by time of day, but by the distance it travels in our atmosphere, which is greater when the sun is low in the sky. The more it is filtered and weakened the more we see the red end of the spectrum.

 The CO2 level just before the Industrial Age may have been lower, but that didn’t make it better. Many of the more radical environmentalists also look back to that time of lower population as more ideal. CO2 was originally called a greenhouse gas because it is essential to plant life, to all life. AGW hijacked the term and called what is essential and good, evil.

 Other than to establish Nick as a working scientist, it’s not important whether the mammoth was frozen in the spring with buttercups in its mouth or in the fall. The point was that warming trends were very gradual allowing migration and adjustment while cooling was abrupt and deadly. Whenever the mammoths were frozen, they didn’t have years to migrate.

The major reason Nick gave that I was wrong was that virtually 100 percent of his peers support AGW. Then he and Ralph demonstrated how the consensus was achieved. Between the two of them they heaped more insults and ridicule on me than in the 15 years I represented the chemical industry regarding hazardous materials: A newbie, bone-chewer, believes sun circles earth, science from ancient Egypt, needs to learn from far smarter people, and unread in current science. They made it clear; those who disagree with their great leader’s position are unscientific, unread, uninformed, and can be disregarded.

Policies based on manipulated or false data can’t be trusted. Our energy policy is destroying our economy and our future. AGW became a serous issue only after it appeared we could become independent of Arab oil. Obama’s energy policy, long-term, will be as effective as disarming.

Max Totten is a resident of Frederick County.