COLUMN: False - and harmful

In Monday’s column, Mr. Harris published an article by Professor Ian Plimer that states huge amounts of carbon dioxide come from volcanic eruptions. To quote “When the volcano Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on Earth.” Since we have continuous records of the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere going back to the late 1950s, it is very easy to check the veracity of that statement. Here is the link for the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii:

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/mlo.html

Mauna Loa is used because it has the longest continuous record. Other stations show similar results.

By examining the graph, you can see for yourself that there is no unusual change in carbon dioxide in either 1991 or 2011(Iceland). There is simply no scientific evidence to support Prof. Plimer’s assertion.

The professor also states the Earth has cooled by 0.7 degrees in the past century. The link below shows this is also utter nonsense:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/

Unlike Prof. Plimer and Mr. Harris, I am not stating an opinion here. These graphs are based on real measurements, and they are accepted by virtually every climate scientist, even those who are warming skeptics.

In my opinion, you do your readers a disservice by publishing information that is demonstrably false.

JOHN EMPSALL

Coeur d’Alene