Hypocritical environmentalists

To the Editor:

The environmentalists are the most hypocritical group of people you can imagine. They are worried about the possibility of a two degree temperature rise, but they do not seem to be aware that one of the most productive periods in earth’s history was during the 1100 to 1300 when Greenland was discovered and it was green and grapes were being grown in England. Where was the CO2?

There is a theory that the concentration will plateau at about four parts per million, which it is now approaching. Something else will also happen that with more CO2, plant life will increase. Leaves and grasses will thrive with more CO2, producing more food and tree growth.

How about CO2 from burning oil? Bear in mind that everything we use comes from the earth and it requires machines burning oil to produce raw material. A wind turbine requires more energy to produce it than it will produce in its lifetime, and then it has to be buried along with the blades which require products from oil also.

Oil has much broader use than transportation. You wear clothes, they probably came from oil. You have to eat food, which requires large quantities of oil or gas for fertilizer and for planting. You want to fly someplace, impossible without oil. Drive an electric car, you will need more power from coal. The large computer installations can require a power plant to keep operating.

Two of the hottest periods in the last 100 years were in the 1930s. Where was the CO2?

Wind turbines and solar are very good power sources. They are expensive and undependable. Electric cars will be great for cities, but are not very good for rural and cold areas, which comprise large portions of our country.

The utilization of power is a necessary component of our life. We need to make use of it in nearly everything we do, so we should not waste it. The more people we have, the more we must diversify our sources of power when we can. Wind and solar are useful for that.

— Don Thorson, Newcastle