In April of this year, 49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a letter admonishing the agency for advocating that man-made carbon dioxide is a major cause of climate change.

Seven Apollo astronauts and two former Houston Space Center directors are dismayed that an objective assessment of all available scientific data has not been made.

Historically NASA has made an objective assessment of all scientific data before making decisions or public statements. Claims that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on climate change are not substantiated.

They requested that “NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases on this subject.”

John Charles, president of free market Oregon think tank Cascade Policy, commented that “carbon dioxide is an essential element in the earth’s climate control system and if we did not have it, it would be too cold for humanity to be here.”

Furthermore, “97 percent of all CO2 emitted every year around the world is naturally caused, only about 3 percent is from humans.”

The third National Climate Assessment (NCA), which was released by the White House less than two months after the alarmist United Nations IPCC report, shows we have reached the phase of the climate change story where bigger and more frequent fixes are needed to keep alive the euphoria of saving the world.

Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., former Colorado State University climatologist, noted that members of the media who accepted the report, “are naïve or they have chosen to promote a particular agenda and this report fits their goal.”

Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Marlo Lewis: The report is “designed to scare people and build political support for unpopular policies. Alarmists offer untrue, unrelenting doom and gloom.”

The NCA is so exaggerated that it is best understood as a political tract with a few scientific footnotes. It matters because it could be used as justification for future carbon-related regulations. The bias could distort the political process for years to come.

Green extremists are demanding that people who are currently alive make vast economic sacrifices that may or may not accrue decades or centuries from now.

Americans are being asked to make these sacrifices for a climate plan the rest of the world does not go along with. Plans that were made based on computer models that cannot accurately predict past or future temperatures.

The Obama administration’s drive to kill off coal-fired power, block the Keystone pipeline and extend bureaucratic control over the energy sector will not be derailed by the facts.

Politicians’ abuse of science as a political tool is a major reason the general public is skeptical about global warming.

Let’s hope President Obama gets his wish and climate and energy policy become a central issue in the upcoming November elections.

 

Joseph P. Smith is the owner of Pyro-Chem Corporation in South Point and has worked in the energy industry for more than three decades. He can be reached by email at joepsmith@zoominternet.net