An article from the Asbury Park Press:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060628/OPINION/606280538/1032
TOPIC OF THE DAY Global warming
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/28/06
Nature solves own problems
As a retired scientist I marvel at the progress made in science during the
last 50 to 60 years in spite of efforts to subvert that progress by such
bogus notions as cold fusion, the ozone "hole" and global warming.
The first of these has properly been relegated to the dust bin of history.
The second still survives annihilation because of the need of NASA
scientists to protect their sinecure, being dependent on an easily spun
Congress to provide budget money for whatever project can be spun as
important. Ozone is easily degraded during the Antarctic winter (with or
without the assistance of chlorofluorocarbons) when there is no sunlight,
and is quickly restored by sunlight when it returns in the Antarctic spring.
These facts have escaped the notice of our non-scientific lawmakers.
The third is being kept alive by proactive environmentalists with an obvious
agenda: the destruction of America's capitalist system. Global temperature
variation is controlled mainly by the variable energy output of the sun.
Even if global warming were caused by anthropogenic activity, so what? Fear
mongers demagogue that glaciers will melt and the seas will rise and flood
our coastline. I dispute this: The winter temperatures in Greenland vary
from 20 below to 20 above zero, and the summer temperatures from 40 to 60
degrees. The difference between the average temperatures is far greater than
any prediction of global warming, yet we see no sea level rise in summer in
the northern hemisphere because it is balanced by freezing in the southern
hemisphere, and vice-versa.
This is not to say we should ignore conservation. On the contrary, the
planet has a fixed amount of oil and, in the absence of substitutes, it will
one day run out. I am confident substitutes will be developed in the
meantime, but we should slow down consumption.
Nature was designed with such care, using checks and balances, that man can
have little, if any, direct influences to change any of its aspects.
A.J. Petro
BERKELEY
