Clyde Burnett, Nederland. We’ve had 30 some years of struggle between scientific environmental facts and the dollars from fossil fuel industries. And still no clear solution.

Question: Can’t we learn from the past?

Answer:  Check the history.

Nearly 50 years ago, Paul Crutzen explained the science of catalytic destruction of stratospheric ozone by nitrogen compounds. When Congress wondered about subsidizing the aircraft industry to build supersonic aircraft to fly in the stratosphere, the scientists argued successfully against the jet engine emission of those nitrogen compounds. And when we learned that the brown cloud in Denver was partly due to nitrogen compounds, we required catalytic converters on our cars.

Then Roland and Molina explained that we had a dangerous reservoir of tropospheric CFCs with the potential to do a similar catalytic destruction of ozone. Dupont argued that we needed these compounds for air conditioning and spray cans, and providing factory jobs. This was in spite of available substitutes. In the 1980s, there were ground based and NASA satellite scientific measurements of the polar ozone hole and the international community responded with the Montreal Protocol to stop the production. (Nature’s rule for the century long tropospheric CFC lifetime means the correction is slow.)

And we have China following our example now with greater than the U.S. pollution of CO2 and NOx in the atmosphere.

Question: Are these the scientific facts that should make us understand climate change?

Answer:  Yes, global warming is caused by some of these pollutants. We’ve had a long history of the atmospheric greenhouse effect. It’s a scientific fact from energy balance that without the atmosphere our average global surface temperature would be 59 F lower, near 0 F. The trace constituents of CO2, H2O, and CH4 in the atmosphere have the scientific ability to trap infrared heat from the Earth’s surface. H2O is strongest because there is so much, but the level is controlled by CO2. 

And we have increased the CO2 trapping by 48 percent since the Industrial Revolution. That has increased another 5 percent since I started this column. And, we have plenty of alternate renewable energies. 

Question: Seventy-five years ago we understood the facts of falling bombs and the rumble of tanks. We mobilized the country and put thousands of lives on the line. Is there a much larger evidence in the melting ice that there is a serious climate problem now?

Answer: There is a small temperature increase, noisy but global and real. But much larger scientific evidence in the melting ice with 79 cal/gm trapped heat of the Arctic Sea, Greenland and Antarctica, and all the world’s glaciers.

There is also a small temperature increase in the oceans which cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface. So, we have evaporation increasing the water vapor trapping and more evaporation, etc, etc!  There is precipitation with a 10-day cycle. That means flooding, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Have you noticed? 

And that global warming makes the stronger Hadley vertical circulation cell with subsidence in southeast U.S. that is making a hot high pressure cell. That stalls the Midwest cold front, and the back side circulation is bringing moist fuel from the Gulf to cause floods and tornadoes. (See photo of NWS surface weather map.)

Question: Why don’t we fix it?

Answer: An intelligent responsible electorate could do this. But in the U.S. we have an electorate that is exposed to the media propaganda from fossil fuel industries that argues for ignoring the scientific facts.  

Question:  Aren’t we intelligent or responsible enough?

Answer: Perhaps. But not enough intelligent or responsible people are voting. We could blame the education system or the media. But look in the mirror! And have you read my columns?

(Originally published in the June 6, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)