Letters to the Editor do not reflect the opinions of The Reporter, its publisher or its staff. You can submit your own Letter to the Editor by email to News@ReadTheReporter.com.
Dear Editor:
I am responding to Kenzie Binford of the College Republicans at IU.
I am also a dedicated Republican and environmentalist who has read the reports of peer-reviewed researchers for decades. I have a science degree from Purdue.
You referred to Senator Braun. I have met him, listen to him and like him very much. But he is a very bright and successful businessman – not a scientist.
I sincerely hope you have studied the causes of climate cycles that have gone on for four-and-a-half billion years. I am proud of you for your effort, but you have been duped and used by the political left.
Many have confused climate cycles with weather. I’ll try to be brief with my facts:
1) CO2 does NOT cause warming. NO PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCHER HAS BEEN ABLE TO PROVE OTHERWISE. In fact, it is fertilizer that has greatly increased crop production the world over, helping many third world countries.
2) Climate cycles are primarily caused by the sun’s 12+/- year cycles of sun spots (cooling) and the solar flares (warming).
3) Millions of tons of ice have been added to Antarctica in recent years, causing it to break off its shelf and be mistaken for melting.
4) The oceans are not rising – no islands have been flooded. Miami Beach is sinking a bit because it was built on a marsh.
5) Greenland was lush green farmland when the Vikings settled it a few hundred years ago. They left or died from the cold a few hundred years later. Its glaciers are again increasing, as are Iceland’s.
6) There are more polar bears than ever previously reported.
7) Generating electricity with wind is expensive. The wind generators break down, are made in China and kill great piles of birds.
8) Solar panels also are made in China, are short-lived and, like wind generators, more expensive, subject to the sunshine, therefore requiring storage facilities or gas backups. Private solar systems where power breakdowns are frequent are probably very helpful.
9) Adding ethanol to gasoline may help the farmers. But the process uses more energy than it produces.
10) Our efforts to clean up pollution has greatly cleaned the air. The Paris Accords will send our millions of dollars to China to clean their air, but they do not use it there – theirs is the most polluted air in the world.
11) We and ALL PLANTS AND ANIMALS ARE MADE OF CARBON. We depend on carbon.
12) The fires in Australia and in the U.S. have had great publicity this year, but actually we have had fewer forest fires in recent years than previously. The seriousness was caused by lack of management that reduces fuel. Fortunately, the U.S. Forest Service is planning on removing millions of dead trees this summer against the wishes of radical environmentalists.
13) Hurricanes and tornadoes are more damaging because we are doing more building in their paths. Their frequency and intensity are less than in over 100 years.
14) The Atlantic is actually in a third year of one of its cooling cycles.
Be careful, Kenzie Binford of Carmel – you have really been duped by the left’s political propaganda.
Mic Mead
Westfield
Well said.
Thank you for your very informative letter about climate change. As has been quoted, “you hit the nail on the head” on this contentious topic.
Mic’s entire letter is nonsense. All of his alternative facts can easily be refuted, but I will just give you the first one…https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/.