CLIMATE: Global warming is a religion

In The Press on Aug. 28, Jay Wilson from Everett expressed his unwavering faith in the miraculous theory of man-made global warming. And, true to his faith, he suggests that our local climatologists, Cliff Harris and Randy Mann — for simply contemplating that anything other than CO2 could be affecting temperature and climate — are science deniers. Given his obvious disdain for their writings, he might as well just call them heretics.

I wonder if Jay has ever heard of the Roman Climate Optimum that ran from about 250 BC to 400 AD, during which temperatures likely averaged a degree Celsius warmer than our present norms, or even the Medieval Warming Period that lasted from about 1050 to 1250, neither of which could be attributed to a human carbon footprint since both predated industrial civilization. I wonder if he’s ever heard of the “CO2 lag,” which refers to how the cyclic warming trends throughout the past 400,000 years repeatedly preceded — rather than followed — the increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, verified in the Vostok ice core data. I wonder if Jay has ever seen global temperature data from the 1930s to around 1980, which chart a 40-plus year cooling trend during a period when carbon emissions weren’t regulated and several major wars kept factories at full pace. I wonder if Jay is aware that no evidence exists anywhere in history of carbon dioxide warming our planet.

JIM BALLOU

Hayden