Carbon paranoia not funny

All this controversy over global warming would be great fodder for a sitcom, were it not for its potential to squander major world economies while accomplishing nothing.

Because of the “will of the people,” who are largely more indoctrinated on the subject than they are educated, we’re discussing the spending of trillions to reduce Earth’s allegedly man-made carbon dioxide levels. But, when our fortunes are gone and we’ve failed to reduce these mostly naturally occurring levels, how will we fix real problems like world hunger or lack of drinking water, sanitation, medicine, etc., in the world’s poorer areas?

It’s estimated that the carbon dioxide generated annually by all commercial aviation is 2 percent of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This might be alarming were it not the same amount of carbon dioxide produced annually by all the world’s cows. We’ve had cows far longer than we’ve had airplanes and something has been keeping bovine carbon dioxide from melting icebergs. Could it be all that photosynthesis perpetrated by plants?

And what about the roughly 5.5 quadrillion (that’s 15 zeros, folks) liters of carbon dioxide exhaled by the world’s humans on a daily basis? Anybody for holding your breath to save a polar bear?

Joe Booth

Spokane