"Scientific" American: An Open Letter from "Scientists" to President-Elect Trump on Climate Change

Guest post by David Middleton

 

unscientific-america

Mr. Trump, if you read this post, please ignore these “scientists”…

To President-elect Trump

We, the undersigned, urge you to take immediate and sustained action against human-caused climate change. We write as concerned individuals, united in recognizing that the science is unequivocal and America must respond.

Climate change threatens… [blah, blah, blah]

[…]

1. Make America a clean energy leader. The vast majority of Americans – whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent – support renewable energy research and deployment5. Embrace the enormous economic opportunities of transitioning to an energy-efficient, low-carbon society6,7. Use part of your $1 trillion commitment to infrastructure development to expand democratized clean energy…

What the frack is “democratized” energy?

2. Reduce carbon pollution and America’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Apart from black soot, there’s no such thing as “carbon pollution.”  Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, etc. are carbon compounds.  Just in case anyone is unclear on the concept…

What is a Compound?

A compound is a substance made from two or more elements

that have reacted chemically with each other.

Remember this definition as you might need it in the exam!

A compound is a completely new material that will often have

totally different properties from the elements that made it.

For example

The element sodium is a highly reactive metal.

The element chlorine is a yellow-green poisonous gas (non-metal).

When the two react together they

form a compound called sodium chloride.

Sodium chloride is common salt, which you eat with food.

You would not want to eat the elements!

[…]

M’kay?

The EPA, despite its bogus endangerment finding, doesn’t classify carbon or carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

wsjco2
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124001537515830975

 

3. Enhance America’s climate preparedness and resilience. In the past 5 years alone, storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires caused over $250 billion in damages10. As climate change continues to increase the frequency and severity of these extreme events…

Enhancing “climate preparedness and resilience” is always a good idea… However, there is no evidence, none whatsoever, that climate change has, is or will “increase the frequency and severity of these extreme events.”  Models aren’t evidence.  Models with a 95% failure rate are, at best, a failed hypothesis.

4. Publicly acknowledge that climate change is a real, human-caused, and urgent threat. If not, you will become the only government leader in the world to deny climate science11. Your position will be at odds with virtually all climate scientists, most economists, military experts, fossil fuel companies and other business leaders, and the two-thirds of Americans worried about this issue1,2,12-15.

Note to “scientists”… We didn’t vote for Donald Trump because he was a lemming.

Climate change is real, always has been, always will be.  Mankind’s activities do play an un-determinable role in it and there is no evidence that it is an “urgent threat.”  There’s scant evidence that climate change poses a net threat to humanity… much less the planet.

5. Protect scientific integrity in policymaking. During your campaign, you said that your “administration will ensure that there will be [scientific] transparency and accountability without political bias16.”

[…]

Which he’s already doing… EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Interior Secretary Cathy McMorris-Rogers, etc.

6. Uphold America’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement. Reneging from this treaty…

Unscientific Unamerican

“America” did not make a “commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement” and it’s not a treaty.  The soon-to-be-ex-President made a commitment and then refused to submit his personal commitment to the Senate for ratification as a treaty.

Now that we have addressed their six points, let’s take a look at some selected signatories of this open letter, to better understand their point of view…

Susan Joy Hassol, Director, Climate *Communication*

Susan wrote HBO’s global warming documentary…

Good for her!

Richard Heede, Co-Founder & Director, *Climate Accountability* Institute

Richard Heede is the Principal of Climate Mitigation Services, a consultancy focused on climate stewardship from emissions inventories to profitable action. Climate Mitigation Services conducts greenhouse gas inventories, develops protocols, defines emissions boundaries, and identifies technologies and strategies to profitably reduce emissions. Client sectors include municipalities, colleges and universities, corporations, international NGOs, architects, and homeowners.

Very sciency!!!

Dr. Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD, Professor, Department of Communication; Director, Center for Climate Change Communication, George Mason University

Dr. Maibach holds a BA in social psychology from University of California at San Diego (1980), an MPH in health promotion from San Diego State University (1983), and a PhD in communication research from Stanford University (1990).

The author if the 52% consensus, if I remember correctly.

Dr. Michael E. Mann, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University

Well, there’s at least one real scientist among the signatories… (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).  To anyone who missed the sarcasm… There are a lot of real scientists among the signatories.

It appears that about 333 of the 800 “scientists” are students…

Hannah M. Teicher, M.Arch., PhD Student, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Jennifer Thomas, PhD Student, Physical Oceanography, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University

Annelise Thompson, PhD Student (artificial photosynthesis), Department of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology

Daniel Traficonte, PhD Student, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Galen Treuer, PhD Student, Environmental Science and Policy, University of Miami

Rebecca Trinh, PhD Student, Biological Oceanography, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Anna Trugman, PhD Student in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University

Cascade Tuholske, PhD Student, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara

Brendan D. Turley, PhD Student, School of the Earth, Ocean, & Environment, University of South Carolina

Alexander J. Turner, PhD Student in Atmospheric Chemistry, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

John J. Turner V, PhD Student in Renewable Energy, Mechanical Engineering Department, University of New Hampshire

Samantha Tushaus, Assistant Researcher, Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ashlee Tziganuk, PhD Student in Urban Planning, Arizona State University

Natalie Umling, PhD Student in Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina

Sital Uprety, PhD Student in Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

 

Sarah Vitale, PhD Student in Geological Sciences, University of Connecticut

Dr. Britta Voss, PhD in Aquatic Geochemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Charlotte Wagner, PhD student, Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

Nicholas Waldo, PhD Student in Environmental Engineering, University of Washington

Rich Walker, PhD Student, Program in Ecology and Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Wyoming

Jessica Wang, PhD student, Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine

Jonathan Wang, PhD Student, Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University

Daniel Watkins, PhD Student, Atmospheric Science, Oregon State University

Lance Watkins, PhD Student and Center Lead, NASA DEVELOP National Program, School of Geographical Sciences & Urban Planning, Arizona State University

Katelyn Watson, PhD Student in Geoscience, Boise State University

Caroline Hagan Webb, PhD Student in Hydrology and Geophysics, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis

Nick Weber, PhD Student, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington

Jennifer Wei, PhD Student, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University

Thomas Weiss, PhD Student in Paleoclimatology, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Ethan Welty, PhD Student, Environmental Studies Program and Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder

Meagan E. Wengrove, PhD Student in Coastal Processes, Department of Ocean Engineering, University of New Hampshire

Katherine Wentz, PhD Student, Environmental Studies Program and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder

Scott Wieman, PhD Student, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

Catherine Wilka, PhD Student in Climate Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Elise B. Wilkes, PhD Student, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University

Emily Williams, MA/PhD Student in Geography, University of California Santa Barbara

Andrew A. Wong, PhD Student, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

Anna Wuttig, PhD Student in Inorganic Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lilia Xie, PhD Student in Inorganic Chemistry (materials for energy conversion), Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert M. Yantosca, Senior Software Engineer, Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group, Harvard University

Walter Yerk, PhD Student, Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, Drexel University

Suzanne Young, PhD Student, Department of Integrative Biology, University of South Florida

Karen Yu, PhD Student in Atmospheric Science, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

Emily Zakem, PhD Student, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

José I. Zenteno, PhD Student of Environmental Science and Management, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara

Xuemei Zhai, PhD Student in Biological Oceanography, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University

Natalie Zielinski, PhD Student in Oceanography, Texas A&M University

Marika Ziesack, PhD Student, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

Katelyn Zigner, PhD Student, Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara

If anyone is counting, I didn’t list all of them.  A word count of “student” returned 333 samples.

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266 Comments
December 12, 2016 11:08 am

Speaking to Griff’s problem with folks who didn’t buck the “consensus” and thus may be “on the bubble” (loosing their jobs). I go back to the shuttle Challenger launch. There was one engineer who stood up and said what needed to be said – don’t launch. He was overruled by launch managers who knew better. A few hours later he was proven correct, and seven people lost their lives.
That’s why these folks who “went along to keep their jobs” should be on the bubble. They are in a position of responsibility and sold their ethics for a paycheck.
Nuff said.

TA
Reply to  Michael Bentley
December 12, 2016 12:09 pm

Well, to be fair to the engineers, there was enough uncertainty about what would actually happen, that the launch might have gone off successfully.
NASA felt pressure to launch on schedule, and they pressed the engineers and the engineers finally said ok. The engineers didn’t know the vehicle would explode if launched under those conditions, they just knew there was a greater chance of something going wrong. That’s all they could definitively say to the NASA bureacrats. Other engineers were adamant that there was great danger in launching under the very low outside temperatures on that morning. Frost was on the launch facilities.
Had it been me, I would have erred on the side of caution. Of course, that’s easy to say in hindsight, but I personally would not have hesitated to delay the launch.
President Reagan was scheduled to talk to the astronauts, which included the first “Teacher in Space”, live once they reached orbit so this was the pressure NASA was feeling, although there is no evidence Reagan put any pressure on them to launch at all, and it is my opinion that the NASA administrator and his minions put the pressure on themselves and rolled the dice. And lost.
A tragedy all around.

dan no longer in CA
Reply to  TA
December 12, 2016 2:25 pm

NASA knew of the problem for years from inspecting returned solid rocket boosters. Instead of fixing the problem (the shelved ASRM changed the design from piston seals to face seals but NASA decided that installing joint heaters was sufficient) they chose to characterize the problem and came up with minimum temperature launch criteria. But the system worked; nobody got fired or jail time, so the bureaucracy was saved.

Griff
Reply to  Michael Bentley
December 13, 2016 4:53 am

yes, there are a whole bunch of people over the ages who’ve stood up and shouted, been put down by the majority and triumphed in the end.
that does not mean that everyone who stands up and shouts is onto anything. which seems to be the current meme in the US.
there are more people who have advanced society by building on what’s there.

Amber
December 12, 2016 11:18 am

It is revealing to see who the first lobbyist’s through Trumps door are . The grant seeking global warming cartel see their self interest threatened and a craping themselves .
All Gore looked like a broken man leaving Trump Tower as Ambassador for the Green Grant seekers .
Do the right thing Mr. Trump and stop the outright rip off of tax payers that has been going on for over 8 years .

Martin A
Reply to  Amber
December 12, 2016 2:24 pm

All Gore looked like a broken man leaving Trump Tower as Ambassador for the Green Grant seekers .
I think Mr Trump had smiled and told him “Al, You’re fired!”

Chris
Reply to  Martin A
December 13, 2016 5:33 am

Like a broken man? Not in the slightest. Whatever the outcome, he can say he did his best. I pity those sitting on the sidelines doing nothing.

catweazle666
Reply to  Chris
December 13, 2016 11:57 am

You could say the same for Josef Stalin, of course.

markopanama
Reply to  Amber
December 12, 2016 3:07 pm

Al Gore, Leonardo what’s his name, all lining up to convince the DJT of the righteousness of their cause and expecting to win. Like meeting with Godzilla and asking him not to step on Volvos.

Peta in Cumbria (now moved to Notts)
December 12, 2016 11:32 am

Could we please have a little less denigration of black carbon soot?
Yes its gloriously messy stuff, and black, and melts ice-cubes in laboratories but it is a fantastic soil (dirt) conditioner. For lack of a better term it ‘breaks up’ clay soil and makes it friable. In fact, is it not why especially fertile soil is the colour it is (black) anyway?
No-one’s quite sure sure but dirt, liberally sprinkled with soot, grows plants like nobody’s business. Witness how German farmers in the 1920’s were distraught as soot spewing coal powered trains were replaced with clean electric trains.
And its role as asthmatic breathing causation and general all-round lung destroyer is really rather coming into question, what do we suppose is going on here… maybe the black soot is a ‘symptom’ or indicator of other problem rather than the cause?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38224437

Hivemind
Reply to  Peta in Cumbria (now moved to Notts)
December 12, 2016 3:20 pm

It makes your laser printers work.

NW sage
Reply to  Peta in Cumbria (now moved to Notts)
December 12, 2016 5:12 pm

Beside that, isn’t calling anything ‘black’ a racist statement?

Tom Halla
December 12, 2016 11:47 am

What is interesting is how many of the signers are in creatively squishy fields of study like Public Health Education, not just the normally squishy Public Health.

December 12, 2016 12:01 pm

Scientific American promoted environmentalism and science speculation nearly all my life. It was once a serious, and popular science magazine before the 1970s. It should have changed its name in the 1970s to “Unscientific Guesswork“. In an effort to make science more popular and relevant to the lives of its public, SciAm went down the path of hype, guesswork and speculation. Any kind of new idea gets a big spread. Not matter how fanciful. SciAm was also the first English publication to use the term “renewable energy” back in 1971. Since then they’ve been on a 45 year long crusade to sell it to us. No matter how impossible the economics may be. SciAm ended up preferring speculation to actual science:

In the past 5 years alone, storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires caused over $250 billion in damages. As climate change continues to increase the frequency and severity of these extreme events

December 12, 2016 12:08 pm

Below is a comment I wrote specifically for SciAm but they just closed their comments a minute ago. The comment is appropriate for current WUWT article as well as anyone reading SciAm about it:
“Over 300 of these 800 signatories to this letter are students, not academic employees, professors, or scientists working in industry. They have been misled by a determined group of activists to believe that anthropogenic global warming exists and must be reduced by determined governmental action. I hate to tell you, guys, the warming that exists is not anthropogenic. To convince yourself, do this at home: get a global temperature curve such as HadCRUT3 that has not yet been attacked by imaginary corrections from IPCC. Put it into your computer and compare it to the Keeling curve that shows distribution of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Start it from 1850. That date is important because your leading agitators regard it as the start of the industrial age, when atmospheric carbon dioxide first began to increase. What you will see is that the Keeling curve has a steady, gently increasing upward slope because of constant addition of carbon dioxide to it, but is otherwise smooth. This is not at all true of global temperature, however, that parallels it. Your agitators have told you that anthropogenic global temperature increase follows the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But this is not happening because global temperature constantly goes up and down except when they decide to falsify it. Using the HadCRUT3 temperature curve we find two sections in it where the temperature significantly goes down. It can no way be called warming that follows the carbon dioxide change shown by the Keeling curve. This includes a 35-year cooling section that starts in 1875 and ends in 1910. Plus, there is also a ten-year cooling section of from 1940 to 1950. The latter is also known as the World War II cold spell. Temperature stayed down and did not reach the 1940 level again until 1980. Together, these two cooling sections take up one third of the temperature curve from 1850 to 2008. It is quite impossible to assign such a temperature history to something called carbon dioxide greenhouse effect There is absolutely no resemblance between what temperature does and what the parallel Keeling curve does that represents behavior of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This simply takes the legs out from under the claim that anthropogenic greenhouse effect exists. The only thing you can say for sure is that global temperature does not follow global carbon dioxide trace and therefore is controlled by natural forces and not by any human activities. You have simply been tricked into signing this letter by lies. Clearly, the ringleaders do not understand, or, more likely, do not want to understand that there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming or AGW because they benefit from this.”

Science or Fiction
December 12, 2016 12:52 pm

“We write as concerned individuals, united in recognizing that the science is unequivocal”
Whatever it is supposed to mean that “the science is unequivocal” it is certainly not a scientific statement.
Even IPCC does not think or write that the science is unequivocal, The gut feeling by IPCC on that question is everything from a walk in the park to catastrophe:
“The equilibrium climate sensitivity quantifies the response of the climate system to constant radiative forcing on multi-century time scales. It is defined as the change in global mean surface temperature at equilibrium that is caused by a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Equilibrium climate sensitivity is likely in the range 1.5°C to 4.5°C (high confidence), extremely unlikely less than 1°C (high confidence), and very unlikely greater than 6°C (medium confidence)( Note 16 ).”
Note 16 “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”

IPCC; WGI ; AR5; Summary for policymakers; Page 16
Scientific American should change its name to Unscientific Activists .

Hivemind
Reply to  Science or Fiction
December 12, 2016 3:23 pm

Anti-American Activists ?

Scott Scarborough
December 12, 2016 1:03 pm

Trump should ask these “scientists” to give him the best estimate possible of the average temperature rise of earth between now and the year 2100. Take their word for it! Then ask the scientists how far south would someone have to move from say Dayton Ohio to achieve this average temperature difference in their surroundings (will probably be something like Knoxville Tennessee). Then ask the American people “would you rather spend uptine trillion dollars to avoid this or is it OK for the people in Dayton Ohio be subject to the temperatures of Knoxville Tennessee in the year 2100?”

Reply to  Scott Scarborough
December 12, 2016 2:45 pm

Scott,
I’ve taught this in presentations for years. Take an isopleth map of average U.S. temperatures, then overlay the IPCC sensitivity range of 1.5-4.5 deg C for a doubling of CO2. It’s like moving from northern Iowa to southern Iowa. Scary! Catastrophic!. Meanwhile, every year northerners flock to retire in Florida, a voluntary “climate change” of about +15 deg C. Warm is good.

December 12, 2016 1:36 pm

Regarding clean energy, I say, “bring it on” , BUT … for the right reasons.
Can humans, however, not make any significant advances without being motivated to do so out of fear for their lives?
Okay, so maybe it’s a neat creative idea to make up this CO2-pollution demon that all nations can get behind to fight against and improve the world. But this is not only scientific bias. This is molecular bias. What has that little CO2 molecule ever done to YOU ? Yet here a bunch of you are condemning it as some evil thing, ESPECIALLY if Earth-raping humans have anything to do with producing more of it.
The CAGW (I usually hate acronyms) narrative embodies “bias” on so many levels. It supports a notion that humans are essentially cancer cells on the globe (which we might very well be, but let’s just say this directly and say how we are truthfully, without contriving stuff to give us a fake measure of control over a fake underlying cause, or at least reveal the REAL cause or causes we are cancer cells. The narrative supports a one-sided view of CO2, exaggerated via false associations with visible pollutants. Via demonizing and false associations, we, thus, create this common enemy for the world, which might do some good (for the wrong reasons), but also does bad stemming from the wrong reasons, which is even “badder” bad.
In this spirit, then, I would treat the open letter as follows:
We, the undersigned, urge you to take immediate and sustained action against human-caused climate change. We write as concerned individuals, united in recognizing that the science is unequivocal and America must respond.
Should read:
We, the underhanded, urge you to take immediate and sustained action against deniers of human-caused climate change. We write as invested individuals, united in politicizing the notion that the science is unequivocal and America must respond to continue our grant funding and pay checks.

Roger Knights
December 12, 2016 1:39 pm

Trump should put up $100 million (say) on a series of bets about climate characteristics at various future dates. Such betting is legal in the UK. Then he should challenge warmists like these petitioners to put up or shut up.

RockyRoad
December 12, 2016 1:49 pm

Here’s my open letter to “Scientific American”: Return to science; stop with the political crap.
Otherwise, you’re no better than the idiots in the Obama administration that are so brainwashed they’re laughable.

mountainape5
December 12, 2016 2:11 pm

PhDs must be cheap in the US.

Hivemind
Reply to  mountainape5
December 12, 2016 3:27 pm

On the contrary, they are very expensive. These guys have a lot invested in continuing the global warming gravy train. It’s the only way they can pay back their student loans.

G. Karst
December 12, 2016 2:17 pm

I think it is wonderful, that a list has been conveniently provided to trump, of those, who are the evil problem. They even signed the list and painted a bright target on their chest and hung a “kick me”sign on their a$$es. Trump couldn’t dream of better, Amazing! GK

Mark
December 12, 2016 3:59 pm

Can you imagine being PhD student nearing completion who has accepted the warm embrace of the climate crowd. Eek!

NW sage
December 12, 2016 5:23 pm

Of the purported 800 or so ‘scientists’ who may or may not have signed the letter have ANY contributed to the advancement of the so called ‘science’ of climatology by actually publishing, in a peer reviewed journal, any paper or work advancing this science? If so, how many? and who are they? If they haven’t then they should be simply listed as “interested” observers. They are not scientists until they have done something scientific. A PhD dissertation usually counts for this purpose – PhD students do NOT count.

Thomas Graney
December 12, 2016 5:51 pm

This is what happens when you let people refer to themselves as social scientists.

Hilary Ostrov (aka hro001)
December 12, 2016 5:52 pm

Another “petition” signed by a virtual army of “scholars” and/or wannabe experts?! These movers and shakers seem to be soooo stuck in the ’90’s – when they thought that the pre-Climategate 1.0 “scientific” world was their oyster.
Whoever dreamed up this particular “petition” is simply mimicking a failed pre-Kyoto strategy dreamed up in ’97 by former UNEP “Chief Scientist”, Joe Alcamo – along with Mike Hulme and Rob Swart … and a generous helping hand from the WWF (former home of Ontario’s and now Canada’s manipulator/puppet master in chief, Gerald Butts).
It certainly appears as though this latest and greatest “petition” was launched by those who might have borne in mind Alcamo’s recognition of reality:

Sounds like you guys have been busy doing good things for the cause.
I would like to weigh in on two important questions —
Distribution for Endorsements —
I am very strongly in favor of as wide and rapid a distribution as possible for endorsements. I think the only thing that counts is numbers. The media is going to say “1000 scientists signed” or “1500 signed”. No one is going to check if it is 600 with PhDs versus 2000 without. They will mention the prominent ones, but that is a different story.
Conclusion — Forget the screening, forget asking them about their last publication (most will ignore you.) Get those names!

For the evolutionary history of this early mode of persuasion, pls see:
The climate consensus coordinators’ cookbook
Although, to their virtual credit, the originators of this latest and greatest … uh … recycled “strategy” have improved upon the ’97 effort by actually including purported academic credentials. But then, so did the UK Met Office when it launched a petition in the immediate aftermath of Climategate. And so did approx. 70 whiners a few years ago, but the WSJ declined to publish their letter! [references/links available on request!]

willhaas
December 12, 2016 8:30 pm

The reality is that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific reasoning to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is really 0.0, The gas in the Earth’s atmosphere that is most responsible for trapping heat is really N2 yet nothing is being done about it. N2 absorbs heat energy via conduction and convection but is a very poor LWIR radiator to space. N2 also has the highest climate sensivity of any gas in our atmosphere. A doubling of N2 in our atmosphere would increase the surface pressure by more than 70% which would result in a huge increase in global temperatures. So far nothing is being done to counter N2’s global warming effects on climate.
The USA does not have any money available to waste trying to force the sun and the oceans to provide the ideal climate, everywhere, all the time. We are deep in debt with huge annual fedeeral deficits, and huge annual trade deficits. To waste money on climate change, the federal government would have to borrow the money. I estimate that the money the federal government is borrowing today will end up costing the tax payers more than 12 times the money borrowed to repay over the next 180 years, According to the Paris Climate Agreement, the anti climate change effort is to be paid for by the rich nations and not poor debator nations like us.
It must be pointed out that extreme weather events, weather cycles, and sea level rise are part of our current climate. So if somehow we can intimidate the sun and the oceans to stop changing the climate we will still have extreme weather events, weather cycles, and sea level rise to deal with. There is no real economic benefit in stopping on going climate change.

G. Karst
Reply to  willhaas
December 13, 2016 9:27 am

Be patient. When the activists have accomplished their global political agenda concerning CO2 they will need another crisis to demonize. Perhaps it will be N2. These people can convert any known substance into HAY (They love to hate gases). GK

Herbert
December 12, 2016 11:07 pm

As a wise Australian once remarked, the beauty of an open letter is that you don’t have to answer it!

December 13, 2016 7:15 am

It’s time we stop kidding ourselves. The real atmospheric threat is O2, oxygen. I am simply appalled that so little is being done about this killer molecule. Talk about dragons [cue moderation cue], you know what oxygen does in relation to flames, right? Why do you think forest fires are prominent in the news? What do you think is fueling those fires? Oxygen ! The stuff is positively destructive !
And look at how it combines insidiously with hydrogen to form the water that floods homes, taking large tolls on life in unsuspecting communities located near rivers and streams. Oxygen is the root cause of any major storm, and yet what are we doing about it? … NOTHING.
Do you LIKE rust ? Why isn’t something being done about all the destructive rusting going on? We just seem to accept rust as … “natural” … , and yet it causes needless wear and tear on our most treasured possessions. Why are scientists distracting themselves with CO2 research, when the REAL enemy to humankind is O2.
Don’t these guys know that oxygen destroys cells, tissues, and, eventually, the entire body? Ever hear of free radical molecules? … and aging? Well, listen up, bub, because these are caused by a species of oxygen in its most virulent form that systematically destroys a cell’s DNA, enzymes, proteins, and membranes. This is scary stuff, and yet we continue to allow it to go on. Simply irresponsible !
Oxygen (O2) poses the greatest threat of any naturally-occurring atmospheric molecule, and still we do nothing about it. Dear President-Elect Trump, we the undersigned …

jayhd
December 13, 2016 9:19 am

This letter is great. It furnishes President Trump with the names of “scientists” who should be denied federal grants.

Michael J. Dunn
December 13, 2016 10:43 am

Gotta offer a snide observation. According to the definition of “compound,” ozone is not a compound? (Consists of only one element.) And breathing oxygen is worse than breathing ozone? (You don’t want to ingest elements, but the compounds may be okay. Try that with nitrogen and oxygen.) I mean, this reflection took only 30 seconds. And these guys are presuming to speak down to us on behalf of science? (R-rated, no chemists allowed.)

Johann Wundersamer
December 20, 2016 1:25 am

David Middleton,

2. Reduce carbon pollution and America’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Apart from black soot, there’s no such thing as “carbon pollution.” Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, etc. are carbon compounds. Just in case anyone is unclear on the concept…” –
Yes, that’s ‘kay with me.
Cheers!

The Third EYE
December 22, 2016 4:08 pm

ok this must be Common Core in ACTION!!! Lucky Trump is going to be doing away with that. Also EPA, FDA, TSA, DHS, USAID, USDA, to name a few that will be changed.
Go to College get brainwashed come out a zombie join the masses of other zombies!
Bring on C02 rain forests love that stuff!