Those who push global warming changed the designation to “climate change.” The reason being that in the last 150 years, earth temperature has increased just a little above 1 degree Fahrenheit. One degree warmer isn’t significant.

A major Reader’s Digest article claimed the Atlantic Ocean is rising on the East Coast. Is it? Or is the land sinking as the tectonic plates 30 miles down were shifting, which they constantly do? Remember the lighthouse on Cape Hatteras was moved inland because the beach was eroding. Earth science teaches us that all of Florida and part of Georgia up to Macon was once ocean floor.

Another fear is greenhouse gas, CO2, being released into the atmosphere by humans burning fossil fuels, coal and oil. Where did the term greenhouse gas come from? I think it originated from the practice of horticulturalists injecting CO2 into their greenhouse farms to increase growth of their crops.

Science teaches us that carbon is vital to growing grass, trees, forests and crops. The optimum level of CO2 for plants is between 1,000 and 3,000 parts per million. Today, our atmosphere is around 400 ppm. There is no scientific proof that increase in CO2 will result in disaster. An increase in CO2 will cause a bumper growth of food we eat.

The earth’s climate continues to fluctuate. We moved to Cornelia in April 1999. That summer was hot and dry. Grass mowing was only a monthly necessity. Since then we have experienced cool and wet, warm and wet and hot and dry. Local, not world wide climate is subject to the jet stream, ocean currents such as el nino and el nina, the sun, and more.

And climate change is more local than worldwide. Take a band around the world between 30 degrees and 40 degrees north and what we experience in North Georgia is not the same around the world at the same latitude.

One final thought is this. Ninety percent of the frozen water on earth is in the South Pole. If all the ice melted on Greenland, which is about 6 percent, the volume might increase ocean levels by 1 inch.

There is a lot more. I do not want to bore you with facts and figures. Just note that people like John Kerry and others never give facts. They just make unsubstantiated statements.

George C. Kaulbach
Cornelia

Send a letter to the editor or email letters@gainesvilletimes.com