At least for now we Americans have the freedom to think for ourselves and to say what we think. But to think you need facts. The following are some facts relevant to climate change.

1. No thinking person denies that climate changes - climate is changing now, has always changed and will always change. What is being discussed is not “climate change” but “global warming”.

2. 0.00117% of the earth’s atmosphere is man made CO2. (The earth’s atmosphere is immense. 0.039% of the entire atmosphere is CO2 and of that the EPA says 3% is man made. 3% of 0.039% equals 0.00117% of the atmosphere is man made CO2)

3. Presently the earth’s atmosphere is 400ppm C02 (ppm is parts per million). In the geologic past (millions of years ago) the CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere has been as high as 8000ppm.

4. Over the past 100 years the earth’s temperature has risen 0.75 degrees centigrade.

Questions you might want to ask yourself based on the above facts.

1. Why do people who are talking about “Global Warming” call it “Climate Change”?

2. Is the 0.00117% of the atmosphere that is man made CO2 likely to be enough to be the major factor causing the entire earth to warm?

3. Is 400ppm CO2 likely to have catastrophic effects on life on earth when 8000ppm in the past didn’t extinguish life - life went on - we are here?

4. Is an earth temperature change on the order of 0.75 degrees centigrade over the next 100 years likely to be catastrophic to life on earth?

What do you think?

Note: If you are asking yourself - What does drive climate change? You might want to look into variation in solar radiation and the mini ice age 300 years ago.

Science is not Consensus. A final point you may want to consider.  Science is not about consensus, it’s about verifiable facts and nothing else (that the sun rises every morning is a verifiable fact - verify by looking out the window). At one time there was consensus that the earth was flat and the sun went round the earth. More recently when I was in school every textbook and every biologist said that humans had 48 chromosomes - consensus. Trouble is when you actually count them there are only 46.  You may have heard that 97% of scientists agree that catastrophic global warming is a fact. You many not have heard that more recently 32 thousand hard scientists (science Nobel prize winners among them) signed an open letter saying that the amount of warming presently occurring poses no threat to humans (it’s on the internet). But consensus is not science - science is verifiable fact - check the facts - not the consensus.

Frank Peek

Alamosa