All that concrete production energy to make a wind turbine?

Also from Ed:

SCIENCE SAYS CO2 CAN’T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

I learned in my 43 years as a university professor it is almost impossible to educate people who refuse to be educated. Those who continue to believe carbon-dioxide emissions are responsible for global warming fall into this class.

There are definite, scientifically tested facts available to anyone who wishes to learn them that conclusive­ly prove CO2 cannot be responsible for warming or cooling. I recently saw a picture in a newspaper of a group of well-intentioned souls who believe if atmospheric CO2 is re­duced to 350 parts per million, this somehow will have a positive effect on climate. Where do people come up with these ideas? I think they’re making it up as they go along.

So let me again try to educate your readers. The ability to be a green­house gas is similar to the ability of something to have a color. To have a color, an object must absorb visible light at specific wavelengths. The in­tensity of color depends on how much light at those wavelengths is available and absorbed. In dim light, color is not very intense. In the dark, there is no color.

The same thing is true for green­house gases. To be effective, CO2 must absorb light at very specific wavelengths. In this case, the light falls in the infrared (heat) region of the spectrum rather than the visible region. CO2 does not absorb visible light. It is a colorless gas.

Earth is a relatively cool planet as planets go. There is not a lot of in­frared radiation available at CO2’s favorite wavelengths. Scientific stud­ies show conclusively that by the time the CO2 level in the Earth’s at­mosphere reaches around 250 ppm, it has absorbed pretty much all the radiation that is available at its fa­vorite wavelengths. The sun will not produce more radiation at these wavelengths just because CO2 has absorbed it all. Consequently, in­creasing the CO2 level in the atmos­phere to 350 ppm or 500 ppm or even 3,000 ppm will have no greenhouse­gas effect on global temperature.

That is an undisputed fact.

This is why in the past, CO2 levels in our atmosphere have been as high as 3,000 ppm and global temperature was the same as it is today. Once the level reaches 200 to 250 ppm, the greenhouse-gas correlation between global temperature and CO2 levels disappears. At that point, the solubil­ity of CO2 in water correlation with the temperature of the water takes over. Ocean temperature controls at­mospheric CO2, not burning fossil fuels.

There recently have been a num­ber of letters to this newspaper in which people have cited as experts the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). You should know more than 70 percent of the mem­bers of the IPCC are not trained sci­entists. The chairman was a railroad engineer, and the president is an economist. Of those IPCC members who are trained scientists, my guess is not many, if any, are trained in at­mospheric physical chemistry. If they were, they would be well aware of the information I cited above.

If a person tells you he is an expert at fixing automobiles, but only has a vague idea of how an internal-com­bustion engine works, you would question his expertise. So be careful whom you consider to be experts in the chemistry of the atmosphere.

James R. B.

Cheshire

The writer is a retired professor of physical chemistry