To the editor:

As measured at mountain tops around the globe, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere over the last 10 years has increased from about 370 parts per million up to about 385 parts per million, or from 0.037 percent to 0.0385 percent. A very minor amount indeed!

Yet atmospheric scientists claim this is the reason for recent global warming. Absurd! Ridiculous! The CO2 content trend line has appeared to correlate or rise parallel with warming increases, but they have never proved that increases in man-made carbon dioxide are the prime culprit. However, volcanic eruptions around the world are on an uptrend, Siberian and Alaskan permafrost is melting from the bottom up, glaciers have been melting far faster than the CO2 uptrend, polar ice is melting fast but the atmospheric temperature has only risen minutely.

Far more likely that earth core heat increases are the source of any warming, perhaps due to solar system changes as seen in recent magnetic and ionosphere measurements. Yet political leaders are demanding CO2 elimination and/or reduction at huge expense. And pseudo-scientist Al Gore is promoting this erroneous premise in meetings with President-elect Obama. If successful in instituting the carbon cap-and-trade system, they will be forcing the country into gigantic expenditures on the wrong cause.

Don Smalter,
Lawrence