Expert: Tom Whiting - 1/17/2010

Question
Are you for or against Global Cooling?

Answer
Hi Cynthia,
Actually, I'm not for or against anything.  But I do know that this planet is self-regulating over the long run.  If it gets a little too warm, then more evaporation occurs, with more clouds, less incoming solar radiation, so the planet cools.  With planetary cooling, the reverse occurs; less evaporation, less clouds, more incoming solar radiation, and the planet warms.  It's been doing that (on it's very own) for over 3 billion years.  That being said, I'm all in favor of less pollution (every polluter except CO2), conserve power, use of alternate power sources... but don't blame so-called anthropologic (manmade) global warming; we don't need a false excuse to live clean... that's my take.
BTW, what is the actual carbon dioxide content of the air...do you know?  Al Gore and the boys would have you think it's over 1%. Wrong! Recall your basic 8th grade Earth Science...Nitrogen 78, Oxygen 21...gee, that only leaves 1%...surely that's all CO2!  Wrong. Argon makes up 0.9% leaving only 0.1% unaccounted for.  You have to go down to about the 4th gas to find carbon dioxide at...get this....0.035%, the lowest it's ever been in the total history of this planet!  It's just barely measureable, let alone catastrophic!!
Take a historical geology course and you'll find that during the Triassic and Jurassic periods(the dinosaurs) the CO2 content was 30-60 times higher, like 1-2%... and this planet stayed that way (with runaway-Nothing) for over 50 million years!  And we want to spend trillions of dollars to prevent the CO2 level from going from 0.035% up to 0.04% by the end of the century?  That borders on...insanity.
Will the polar bear go extinct?  Perhaps. Hey, it's adapt or die... it's been that way for all lifeforms on this planet for over the past 3 billion years.  Will sea levels rise? Perhaps. Then move inland. You've got a couple of hundred years.  Florida has been underwater for over 90% of Geologic history, in fact we're lucky that state is above sealevel today. Nearly the entire state is underlain by oolitic limestone (read that-seashells)...so in all geologic history, Florida is normally...submerged.  Plus, all this coupled with the fact that the current Holocene period has lasted 11,000 years and typically, interglacial warm periods only last 10,000 years followed by 80-100 thousand years of an Ice Age. So...we're currently on 'borrowed time' from the start of the next ice age.  That coupled with a low sun-spot count the past 3 years, volcanic ash up in the stratosphere giving us those pretty red sunsets...are all global cooling mechanisms.  So...burn more fuel, help it out!
Perhaps Copenhagen was a success...as probably half those people knew that it was simply a big political money grab in the name of false 'global warming'... so they did the right thing after all...NOTHING.
That's my personal take on it.
Clear Skies,
Tom Whiting
Erie, PA USA