by D.G. Ronglien

Created on: June 19, 2008

Can we apply some common sense to the discussions that has been going on for too long with no intelligent conclusion? Let us conclude that the major source of heat is the sun. We can also accept that the sun changes its intensity due to sun spots or cycles that come and go over recorded history. More importantly, we should divert our attention not to the uncontrollable sun, but how our health and well being should be addressed.

To cite one example, Greenland was verdant and flourishing with plant life during an unusually warm period from around the tenth century to the fourteenth century. It is obvious that during this warming that there could be no man made CO2 present to cause warming.

Let's deal with the so called "bad" compound CO2. Do you know that it is only .0037 % of the earth's atmosphere? The real culprit that affects our climate and its temperature is H2O, better known as water vapor. It is the humidity, it is your breath that you see in cold weather, you breathe it to steam your glasses when you clean them; it is the most abundant green house gas in our atmosphere. The sun heats up the earth's surface, the oceans, lakes, rivers and ice releasing vapor which traps the heat and warms us and in the night, then the vapor condenses, leaving dew in the morning, and the cycle starts again.

So let us accept that we cannot control the water vapor, or the sun's temperature. The infinite amount of CO2 has no affect on our weather; but it has a huge impact on our health and well being. We must act to continue the control the creation of CO2 and other harmful gases which we breathe. Fifty years ago in Los Angeles, we were having smog alerts during the summer months constantly, after controls on emissions; we no longer have these smog alerts. Then there is the minute particulates, a very fine dust, which is flying around our atmosphere, it may come from the grinding of brake shoes, tire rubber wear residue, dust from construction sites, etc. This can settle in you lungs causing lung illness. We should continue to work to reduce CO2 and other foreign gases and substances that proliferates our city like the aforementioned Los Angeles model.

There is a proposal in our Senate introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer to enforce 70 percent decreases in greenhouse pollution from power plants, refineries and factories over the next 40 years which will cost the economy billions in production losses and job losses; with this proposal, there is no guarantee it will succeed.

Now here is a common sense approach to this "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" dilemma. I include in part from a recent article by Syndicated Columnist, Jay Ambrose, who is citing comments from Freeman Dyson, physicist. Here is one financially sound plan to reduce CO2 with a greater possibility to succeed.

He believes there are vast possibilities for trees genetically engineered to consume
carbon. Their development could be a couple of decades or more down the road,
he says, but the cost of planting them throughout the world would be relatively
small, and the potential would be reduce CO2 by half in about 50 years.

There is new research by international scientists that the sun has been a major driver of climate variability. Solar specialist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish Nation National Space Center explained "We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1000 years."

The use of common sense in approaching climate change or the sun's heat seems to be gaining in favor, in other words, cooler heads are prevailing.

References:
Wikipedia. The Global Warming Debate by Tom DeWeese, Capitalism Magazine.
Syndicated Columnist, Ambrose, Jay

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