On April 30 our local newspaper ran a half page article with the headline "Ocean temperatures are shockingly high." The writer went on to say that "while the rise in surface temperature anomalies is terrifying, it's not unexpected.... This wouldn't have happened without climate change." A few days later in early May Michigan experienced a record-breaking late snowfall of almost three feet. Guess how many lines of print were devoted to this event in that newspaper. Answer-none!
Climate activists (or global warming activists as they used to be called before an inconvenient cold period) have used sensationalism for many years to promote their agenda. Back in 2006 Al Gore predicted global disaster in 10 years if we didn't act. That catastrophe didn't happen. But our climate czar John Kerry and also AOC have made similar foreboding announcements. The "shockingly high" newspaper article fits into that category.
Many of us are familiar with the account in the Sermon on the Mount of the two houses: one built on sand, and the other built on a rock. The shaky foundation of the house built on sand lead to its destruction when tested. Much of our present economy is built on the foundation of climate change. Shouldn't we be certain that those assumptions are rock solid? The present administration has vowed that the country should be "carbon neutral" by 2035. The administration's experts are unable to predict the cost of this transformation, nor are they able to say how successful it would be if other countries, such as China, didn't follow our example. Hardly a sound foundation on which to base much of our economy!
"Let's follow the science" the Left says. Well let's do that. Geologists tell us that 10,000 years ago the globe was coming out of the latest of several ice ages. At that time the polar ice cap in the northern hemisphere stretched as far south as the northern United States--Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other places. I have personally seen evidence of ancient glacial activity in these places. For example, there is a huge rock, perhaps 30 feet high, on the beach in Bar Harbor, Maine, dissimilar in composition to any rocks in that area. Geologists tell us it was carried there over many miles from its original location 40 miles away where its rocks matched.
Additionally, the massive amounts of ice melting from the polar ice caps have resulted in rising oceans that have covered many landmarks. This should not seem strange. Our planet has been warming continuously, with a few interruptions such as the Medieval Warm Period, for the last 10 to 12 thousand years. The same is true for the inter-glacial periods between the previous ice ages, when the globe successively warmed and cooled over thousands of years as the sun's orbit relative to the earth changed. (Scientists call them Milankovitch cycles. These historical cycles occurred without any human use of fossil fuels.)
When was the last time you heard any climate activist refer to that science? As far as I know John Kerry has never mentioned the science of the ice ages as he flies around the world in his gas guzzling private jet. His motto should be let's follow the science, but let's do so only as long as it's convenient! Rather a shaky foundation don't you think?
The House of Representatives has just passed a bipartisan bill negating the removal of tariffs on Chinese solar panels. The President, in keeping with his "soft-on-China" policies, says he will veto the bill if it passes the Senate. China is the largest producer of solar panels with over 60% market share. The Green New Deal (GND) activists like solar panels because they think the panels (which are effective only when the sun shines) will replace the evil fossil fuels. Solar panels are made from pure silicon which requires large amounts of energy to manufacture. The process requires the use of coal and PVC (a petroleum derivative) to treat the raw material which is sand. Using extreme heat, the sand is melted and then refused into pure silicon. So solar panels need large quantities of fossil fuels in their production.
Another favorite of the GND activists is the electric vehicle. They think that those vehicles will avoid the use of fossil fuels. In reality it takes a lot of electricity to charge an EV. Most of that electricity comes from fossil fuels. Those cars currently take about three hours to fully charge, and at the moment the charge takes the car only 200 miles. The average Tesla has a heavy battery that is produced from almost 1,000 lbs. of minerals. These have to be mined and processed into manganese, cobalt, lithium and other materials required in the battery's manufacture. The excavation and treatment of these minerals uses large quantities of energy. (Guess where that comes from!)
So, the assumptions of the extreme environmentalists need to be challenged. It seems to me that their foundations are somewhere between sand and Yazoo clay.
Peter Gilderson, Madison.
