Climate change is natural

During President Obama’s recent pep talk one statement stood out for accuracy. “Climate change is real and is happening now.” And this statement would have been accurate any time during the 4.5 billion years of Earth’s existence, the very frequent climate changes having been caused by natural forces including solar variations and volcanic activity.

No respectable scientist disagrees that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have some effect on climate, but Gary Crooks (May 11) seems to believe that natural forces have been irrelevant since the Industrial Revolution. Not mentioned is the fact that for almost two decades now, atmospheric temperatures have remained stable. This contradicts the International Panel on Climate Change’s consistently exaggerated predictions of ever-increasing temperatures with increased human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and can only be explained by either cockeyed IPCC computer models, or mitigating intervention by natural forces.

In regard to carbon taxes to finance alternative energy, these alternatives are already subsidized beyond reality. What would really turn the corner for wind and solar would be a viable, massive storage system for electrons. This seems to be an elusive target, but it is more likely that someone in a garage might sometime come up with the answer rather than subsidies to political cronies.

Morris Kaufman

Spokane Valley