LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Don’t assume that humans cause climate change – The Central Virginian

I applaud the efforts described by Sara Elder (July 29) and Peter Sugarman (Aug. 12) regarding the work by Louisa County High School students to learn about climate change. Involvement with major issues, at the age of these students, can only help us toward a better future.

It is unfortunate, however, that each of these letters adds to the confusion about the causes of climate change. Both bow to political correctness and in the process confuse weather with climate change. Yes, the carbon emissions by mankind contribute to global warming. And yes, we are experiencing unusual weather events, but not that unusual if we look back over the past 100 years. What is generally misunderstood is the relatively large component of climate change that is a result of natural causes. These natural phenomena include changes in the orbit of the earth around the sun, changes in the tilt of the earth in its orbit, precession (wobble) of the earth in its orbit, changes in the level of the suns radiation, changes in the amount of radiation reaching the earths atmosphere, etc.

Over the past 20,000 years we have been in a warming period. There had been a massive, thick ice sheet covering much of North America, and Northern Europe and Asia. Over this period there is evidence of intermediate temperature variations of plus or minus 4 to 5 degrees Celsius. These changes have all occurred without any contribution from the activities of mankind. This is happening whether or not we make substantial efforts to reduce man-made carbon emissions. We ought to do what we can to minimize carbon emissions at a reasonable cost, but what we achieve is unlikely to produce a measurable effect on the trajectory of temperature change in the environment.

Where we can make a meaningful difference, however, is in taking measures that help us adapt to the changes that are certain to occur. These include avoiding building in floodplains and on the ocean shore line. We need to manage our forests better, to eliminate the materials that can feed large fires. We can also look at measures that would block some of the suns radiation from reaching the surface of the earth. We can take measures to adapt to living in a warmer climate, realizing that more people today die due to cold temperatures rather than the heat.

I realize that this view is generally considered to be politically incorrect. The woke folks will tell you that the science of climate change is settled. The climate change we are experiencing is primarily caused by the actions of mankind, through the emission of greenhouse gases. You know this is so by listening to the political pundits discussing the results reported in the various United Nations IPCC (International Panel of Climate Change) reports that have been issued over the years. Fortunately, there have been a number of scientists who have taken the trouble to analyze the raw data behind the reports before it is filtered by editors through political lenses to suit the current correct narrative on this subject.

It is beyond the scope of a letter to the editor to present a full explanation of the current scientific views of climate change. I highly recommend, however, a book on this subject by Dr. Steven Koonin, a professor in the Department of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University. Dr. Koonin was an advisor in the Obama Administration. Before that he spent 30 years teaching at Caltech, specializing in data analysis and generating mathematical models using this data. The title of the book (published in April 2021) is Unsettled, What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesnt, and Why It Matters. The publisher is BenBella Books, Dallas, Texas.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Don't assume that humans cause climate change - The Central Virginian