Reasoning with the unreasonable Re: Hans Croeber letter Mr. Croeber makes a fundamental mistake in his recent letter regarding global warming: He tries to reason with unreasonable people. The Global Warming Cult is based on pseudoscience, feelings of guilt andself-loathing, and an unrelenting hatred of capitalism. He’d be better off quoting astrologers than astronomers. The people who beamed up to the spaceship behind Hale - Bopp cared not a whit for logic. Likewise, people who believe toilet paper should be rationed are undeterred by facts, whether historical or scientific. For them, blind faith in Gaia is everything, and an end unto itself, and Mr. Croeber’s way of life must be sacrificed on her altar. Tim Jacobs Montrose Globing warming experts aren’t over-exaggerating Re: Hans Croeber letter I felt the need to respond to Mr. Croeber’s letter alleging that Global warming experts were being alarmists. I have included many instances of warming in the following paragraphs from the web site Ecobridge.org. I have seen many articles in recent magazines regarding relocation of villages (the village Shishmaref, for instance) in Alaska due to levels of rising sea water never seen before. The villagers have been in Shishmaref for thousands of years and now they must move. It’s really not alarmist to be concerned about this. I respectfully submit the following evidence found on the ecobridge web site in support of the global warming issue. Please visit it for further substantiation of the effects of global warming. Carbon dioxide increasing in atmosphere: The atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, have increased since pre-industrial times from 280 part per million (ppm) to 377.5 ppm (source: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov), a 34 percent increase. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are the highest (source: http://sfgate.com) in 650,000 years. Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the burning of fossil fuels, such as gasoline in an automobile or coal in a power plant generating electricity. Levels of atmospheric methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, have risen 145 percent in the last 100 years. Disappearing glaciers: Ice is melting all over the planet. Glaciers are melting on six continents. If present warming trends continue, all glaciers in Glacier National Park could possibly be gone by 2030. The park’s Grinnell Glacier is already 90 percent gone. Because of global warming, the glaciers of the Ruwenzori range in Uganda are in massive retreat. The Bering Glacier, North America’s largest glacier, has lost 7 miles of its length, while losing 20-25 percent of parts of the glacier. Ice cores taken from the Dunde Ice Cap in the Qilian Mountains on the northeastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau indicate that the years since 1938 have been the warmest in the last 12,000 years. In southern Peru the rate of melting of the Qori Kalis glacier during the 8 year period 1983 to 1991 was 3 times the pace of the previous 20 years, 1963 to 1983. The Qori Kalis is receding at about two feet per day. Sitting beside the glacier, one could witness the melting hour by hour. A glacier from which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay set out to conquer Mount Everest nearly 50 years ago has retreated three miles up the mountain due to global warming. The head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Tashi Jangbu Sherpa, says “ that Hillary and Tenzing would now have to walk two hours to find the edge of the glacier which was close to their original base camp.” I just think that all of us need to be aware of the distressing consequences that our actions have on our environment. We only have one earth and it’s time to preserve it. P.S. I’m staying at work now during lunch instead of going home like I did in the past. I’m saving 30 miles of vehicle emissions a week doing this. If more of the people would try this it might make a huge difference. Liz Rankin Montrose |