POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Letters to the Editor and other People Speak


FROM-Pittsburgh Tribune

Cap the junk science

To Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey and Arlen Specter: On the cap-and-trade bill that will be considered by the Senate soon, I urge you to vote against any version of this bill.

I am an engineer with years of experience and understanding of scientific matters such as the so-called crisis of global warming. The science is inconclusive with respect to proving a link to carbon dioxide. Water vapor and sunspots, not to mention wildfires, volcanoes and methane coming from rice fields, play just as much a factor.

Please consider also that such a cap-and-trade tactic, while perhaps a good-intentioned law, will most likely cost each and every home an additional $1,000 or more in energy costs.

In Western Pennsylvania home heating costs and gasoline for our vehicles combined are already a huge portion of most people's yearly expenses, and with the economy as such, this measure will hurt the consumer and eventually hurt an already ailing economy.

What I would like would be for the Senate to consider and show to the taxpayers and voters proof that cap and trade actually will reduce CO2 and further proof that that reduction in CO2 will prevent dramatic increases in the Earth's average temperature.

I would like the Senate to consider that the U.S. already is slowing CO2 production and that developing countries such as China and India are racheting up their production to degrees higher than our own. And no bill you produce will address that, so it will be ineffective.

A much more effective means to control emissions would be a direct tax on gasoline. This would show the voters and taxpayers a direct link and therefore would be more honest, as it is not a hidden tax as would be the cap-and-trade measure.

Doug Bauman

New Kensington


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