Can’t fool nature

To the editor:

In the May 10 Public Forum, Larry Kelley presented a collection of standard scientific misinformation about global warming. Answering presents the usual problem that it takes longer to explain reality than to do snappy one-liners, a technique pioneered by those other science deniers we all know. We’ll try to deal with two.

He says carbon dioxide doesn’t lead warming in the ice core record, it follows. He mentions that warming causes more carbon dioxide to come out. Clever misdirection: It both leads and follows. It comes as no surprise that other factors besides carbon dioxide affect climate. More carbon dioxide warms the Earth, through the same process that heats a car left in the sun. This in turn causes more carbon dioxide to come out of the ocean and certain soils, which makes things even warmer. This is a dangerous feedback loop. He trivializes it by making it sound like warming is the cause, and not an effect. It comes as no surprise that other factors besides carbon dioxide affect climate.

He says, “Pluto is maintaining an atmosphere further into its solar apogee.” Further than WHAT? Its atmosphere was discovered in 1988, it takes 248 years for Pluto to orbit the sun so we have next to zero observations of any changes around its orbit.

I think Larry didn’t get the memo: Even corporations like Shell Oil and General Motors are signing on to the human role and danger in global warming. As the late great physicist Richard Feynman noted, “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”

Adrian Melott,

Lawrence