POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Letters to the Editor and other People Speak

FROM-Niles Daily Star

Not convinced about global warming

The Niles Daily Star published an editorial on Monday concerning global warming titled “Outright deception.” The paper implied that the American people are being deceived by a huge lobbying effort funded by “big oil,” “big coal” and Fox News. Certainly, the coal and oil industries are trying to influence us. I would be amazed if they did nothing to counter the propaganda of global warming advocates because the media consistently fails to provide the other side. For every issue, there are at least two sides. The claim that global warming is settled science is arrogant and conceited. We should hear both sides of every argument if we’re to decide which side to support.

I wish the Niles Daily Star had balanced its editorial about deception with information about the e-mail scandal at the influential University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. Until the disclosure of damaging e-mails among global warming advocates revealed fraudulent attitudes about global warming climate research, many people just suspected that global warming advocates were “spinning” the data, but nobody could prove it. Subsequently, we learned that the basic raw data of the Climate Research Unit have been mysteriously lost or deleted so there is no way to reproduce and validate independently its principal conclusions about global warming. One scientist at the Research Unit advocated excluding skeptics from peer-review panels. That would make future scientific papers suspect. In science, nothing becomes accepted fact until other scientists get the same results in their experiments.

Apparently, some at the Climate Research Unit were prepared to alter the scientific method to suit their politics. That is pernicious and should investigated. Already the director of that unit has resigned.

Most weather data is analyzed by computers using man-made algorithms. I suspect that at least some of the assumptions and variables contained in the algorithms were unconsciously or consciously constructed by these same scientists to achieve their desired results proving that global warming exists and that man is causing global warming. I also wish the Niles Daily Star had included information in its editorial that a growing number of prominent scientists believe that global warming and a link to man’s activities are not yet proven.
I’m old enough to remember the “global cooling” that dominated the popular press in the 1970s. That proved to be a short-lived worry. There is no doubt that the earth warmed during the 80s and 90s. The earth also warmed during the 30s, when there was less industry in the world. My 86-year-old father tells me that the summers in the 30s were brutal during the “Dust Bowl” period. Science also indicates that there was global warming during the Middle Ages. There was no industry on any modern scale then. I wonder what caused that warming. Global warming advocates can’t explain the global cooling we have experienced since 2000. Those algorithms indicated a steady warming pattern. If those same computer projections can’t explain short term cooling, how can we trust that they can predict long term trends?

Before we launch into the complicated and very expensive federal program called “Cap and Trade,” let’s insure that the science truly supports such a program. It’s my contention that it doesn’t yet. However, if I’m wrong and there is global warming and that man is causing it, then we should insure that ALL countries adopt measures before we unilaterally adopt expensive measures like “Cap and Trade.” At this moment, China and India will not support any restrictions on expansion of coal and oil-fired industry. If don’t do that, we can close all the rest of Michigan’s manufacturing facilities because they won’t be needed any longer. As Barack Obama put it, electricity costs will necessarily skyrocket. Pardon me if I don’t cheer.

Michael L. Waldron
Niles



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