Sunday, March 31, 2013

'Global warming put down'


...sent to Chicago Reader (a local paper that comes out every Thursday.  Letter in
response to a column responding to a reader  questioning global warming.)  I've
sent so many letters on this subject they almost write themselves now.

Chicago  Saturday AM 9 March 2013

Mr Cecil Adams, Chicago Reader

Mr Adams your Thursday 7 March 'Straight Dope' column [cli-change/global
warming ] was your usual high standard of presenting interesting information on
a current topic (how many people realize you've been maintaining that standard
for 40 years?).  But it does seem to suffer from a defect common to majority of
articles on the subject:   the pathetically small amount of data available to back
up these claims.

You mention climate change models, which are the backbone of climate change
claims.  A model can be used to demonstrate  just how lacking the amount of
data available to back up these claims:  projecting the 4.5 billion year age of the
planet on  an 80-year human lifetime.  Such a model  shows a single year of earth
time equivalent to 0.562 seconds of that 80-year lifespan.  In this model humans
first appeared on earth 39 days ago. They had no idea of measuring temperature
before Galileo's 1593 thermometer invention, 4 minutes ago to our geezer.
Discovery of carbon dioxide in 1630? 3 minutes 30 seconds ago.

Your article starts out with a major example of this defect referring to “the trend
from 1878 to 2008”  showing “the average annual total of hurricanes increasing
from seven to twelve.”  This is equivalent to 73 seconds in the model.

Your article further says “some scientists ,,, say the average annual number of
category 4 and 5 hurricanes, which together cause nearly half of all hurricane
damage, has more than doubled since the early 1970s.” Put this in the reality
model, 23 seconds to a senior citizen.  

But I continue to enjoy, and profit from, reading your weekly column in
The Chicago Reader.


Arnold H Nelson in Chicago ah_nelson@yahoo.com

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