Dear editor,
I would like to respond to several points made in Tom Pater's letter to the editor (Record, Jan. 18), those being CO2, global temperatures, and "fossil fuel production."
The “fundamentals of a changing global climate” are not limited to carbon dioxide, according to noted geologist, environmentalist and founder of PlantsNeedCO2.org, H. Leighton Steward. On his website he lists 22 separate potential causes of climate change, such as the sun's heat, or lack of, the earth's tilt, ozone, and ocean currents, to name a few.
A 1999 Arctic ice core analysis showed that changes in CO2 concentration actually follows a rise in temperature, instead of causing the added warmth. The rise in CO2 concentration isn't all bad, contrary to what global warming posterboys say.
In fact, a high CO2 level is helpful to the sustainability of the earth's vegetative mass, and the more carbon dioxide the plants have, the less water they use in the process.
As for the effect on humans, there are currently 394.39 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere; now compare this number to those typically kept in U.S. Navy subs: 8,000 ppm. A large difference, but it just shows that higher CO2 has little or no effect on humans.
Mr. Pater declares that there have been a consecutive “333 months ... [of] above-average global temperatures. A report quietly released by the UK Meteorological Office in late 2012 says that the global warming actually stopped 16 years ago, in 1997.
First Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, stated in 2012 that there was no discernible change in temperature between early 1997 and August 2012.
Also last year, Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, the Russian head of space research at Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, Russia, declared that we are about to head into the start of a mini ice age come 2014.
The last point I wish to touch on is that of so-called "fossil fuels."
Mr. Pater states that "fossil fuel production needs to slow down now."
Within the last decade several oil fields around the world were considered barren and devoid of a substantial amount of oil. But, using the Middle East in 2004 as an example, the oil replenished itself to double the amount that was originally thought there!
Did dinosaurs somehow appear there where there were none more left and start creating oil again instantaneously?
It would be hard to explain this phenomenon without taking a look at the abiogenic oil production process. As this theory goes, petroleum forms roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, where compressed streams of methane-based gases hit high-temperature pockets, causing heavier hydrocarbons to condense, thus creating what we call crude oil.
In fact, this is how the Russian schools have taught their children since the 1960s, that oil is a product of the earth and not of formerly living organisms such as dinosaurs.
As there has been no warming since 1997, maybe you should ask your provincial representative Don McRae why the hell we're paying a carbon tax. If we stopped simply spouting the flawed pro-global warming theories the paid scientists feed us with and started getting to the facts, then we would have a better chance towards a greener future.
Theories change because they're flawed. The facts are not flawed. If scientists based their theories on more fact, then their theories would be less flawed and thus change less.
Caleb Draper,
Courtenay