December 23, 2007
Editor, The News Journal
I attended an Oct. 17 presentation of the Al Gore slide show on global warming at the Academy of Lifelong Learning. The show was slick, persuasive, one-sided propaganda. It definitely was not science.
One slide showed a very slight warming during the medieval period and a large amount of current warming. The reverse is true.
During the medieval period, Alaska was 3 to 5 degrees warmer than now, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Grapes were grown in England north of where they can be grown now. Vikings were farming in Greenland until they were overtaken by the Little Ice Age.
In the slide show, the hottest year since 1860 was given as 2005. In a reanalysis of NASA temperature data, a positive bias was found [in the test procedure and the correct answer turned out] to be 1934. NASA acknowledged the error.
Implications of warming are refuted by the fact that earlier warmer periods were warmer than this one without dire effects.
Assertions that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions are the major factor causing warming are not consistent with the fact that alternate warm and cool periods have occurred over and over again.
Variation in the activity of the sun is correlated with alternating warm and cool periods based on ice core data. This is supported by direct observation of the sun during the coldest period of the Little Ice Age.
Contrary to the slide show, carbon dioxide is beneficial. Plants love it, and so do people who are struggling to produce enough food.
Economical energy supports our standard of living and lifts millions of people out of poverty. There is no need to adopt uneconomical forms of energy in an ineffective attempt to limit global warming.
William E. Morris