Dear Mr. Pres.,
I've watched some of your climate change speech Tuesday, June 25, at Georgetown, and read the entire text and you encouraged citizens to speak up for the facts, so that is what I'm doing here.
Regarding your claim that scientists were aware of CO2 levels in the atmosphere as early as the 50s, concern over such levels didn't really take hold until VP Gore made a case for it, inaccurately if not fraudulently, I believe, in his book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It , and a documentary film put together by Davis Guggenheim with Mr. Gore's slideshow and the book. This volume offers a rebuttal to Mr. Gore's assessment, and includes the nine (9) errors in Mr. Gore's movie identified by the High Court in London. The judge stated that, if the UK Government had not agreed to send to every secondary school in England a corrected guidance note making clear the mainstream scientific position on these nine “errors”, he would have made a finding that the Government’s distribution of the film and the first draft of the guidance note earlier in 2007 to all English secondary schools had been an unlawful contravention of an Act of Parliament prohibiting the political indoctrination of children. This rebuttal includes not only these nine errors, but also an additional 26 errors identified by Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, now affiliated with the Science and Public Policy Institute, a nonprofit Institute for research and education dedicated to sound public policy based on sound science. Similarly, other errors in Al Gore's movie were noted in Falsehoods in Gore's An Inconvenient Truth .
Secondly, as far as CO2 being a pollutant as you stated several times in your speech, most scientists believe that CO2 is a gas necessary for all human life, because it feeds all plant life. Some have even said “Mr. President, It's Not "Carbon Pollution" It's the "Elixir of Life!" . Perhaps most importantly, these sloppy ambiguities (“carbon” for “carbon dioxide”, for example) seems to belie your basic education and advanced degrees. Furthermore, the implication that so-called elevated CO2 levels are driving temperatures is contrary to observations, as demonstrated here , Even Erik Bays, an Oregon University undergraduate, seemed to get it right in his paper, A Logical Argument Against Man Made Global Warming for the Layman. The most complete collection of information I've seen recently on the possibility of Anthropogenic Global Warming is located at the Climate Science portion of the Green World Trust In addition to an excellent Abstract paragraph, this site also offers numerous links to various sources of information, like the excellent four-part YouTube series on climate by Prof. Robert M Carter, adjunct Research Fellow, James Cook University (Queensland), Australia and Chief Science Advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) and an Emeritus Fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, totally destroying the notion that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) is being caused by CO2, Probably my favorite and most informative portion of this climate science page is the Skeptics Climate Science PowerPoint presentation, to the right of the North American image at the top of the page. If you click on this PowerPoint presentation, you will be presented with a 90-slide presentation of “Catastrophe Deconstructed” (the title page), suitable for both laypersons as well as experts in their respective fields.

Major Points from the PowerPoint Presentation that I believe should be emphasized:

Slide 21-The false assumption regarding CO2 remaining in the atmosphere for 100 years, prior to being recycled to the oceans, as that duration in the atmosphere is approximately 10 times what most studies concluded was accurate.

Slide 37-The ice core historical model shows that temperature increased 800 hundred years BEFORE CO2 increases, totally destroying the idea that CO2 levels drive temperature. This issue of temperature leading CO2 is also addressed at other outside sources here , here , here here ,and here .Prof. Bob Carter said that “Temperature change precedes carbon dioxide change by about 5 months during the annual seasonal cycle, and by about 700-1000 years during ice age climatic cycling.” Prof.. Carter continues regarding how equally qualified scientists could disagree so greatly on the basis of apparent global warming,“I commented earlier that science is not about emotion or politics, despite which it is uncomfortably true also that public discussion of the global warming issue is conducted far more in accordance with those criteria than it is about science. As discussed at more length in my book, there are three prime reasons for this.

First, as a branch of the United Nations, the IPCC is itself an intensely political and not a scientific body. To boot, the IPCC charter requires that it investigate not climate change in the round, but solely global warming caused by human greenhouse emissions.

Second, from local green activist groups up to behemoth NGOs like Greenpeace and WWF, over the last 20 years the environmental movement has espoused saving the planet from global warming as its leit motif. This has had two devastating results. One is that radical environmentalists have worked relentlessly to sow misinformation about global warming in both the public domain and the education system. And the other is that, faced with this widespread propagandization of public opinion and young persons, and by also by strong lobbying from powerful self-interested groups like government research scientists, alternative energy providers and financial marketeers, politicians have had no choice but to fall into line.

Third, and probably most influential of all, with very few exceptions major media outlets have provided unceasing support for measures to “stop global warming”. This behaviour appears to be driven by a combination of the liberal and green personal beliefs of most reporters, and the commercial nouse of experienced editors who understand that alarmist environmental reporting sells both product and advertising space.

Because many scientists, including leading solar physicists, currently argue that the position that the Earth currently occupies in the solar cycle implies that the most likely climatic trend over the next several decades is one of significant cooling rather than warming.  Meanwhile, the IPCC’s computer modelers assure us with all the authority at their command that global warming will shortly resume – just you wait and see.”

Slide 50-The quote from Dr. Richard Lindzen, atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT), regarding alleged AGW. Professor Lindzen famously remarked of global warming alarmism a few years ago that ‘The consensus was reached before the research had even begun’.

Slide 52- How the Little Ice Age (LIA) was omitted from the climate record. This document from John Lawrence Daily shows how the LIA was erased, and chides Dr. Mann and his associates for their false allegations in creating the so-called “Hockey Stick”.. This article not only destroys the notion of the Hockey Stick, but also criticizes Al Gore for using it to try to draw a statistical relationship between temperature and CO2 in the recent past.

Slide 61-Observed warming of only 0.6 Celsius, seems to support the lack of positive feedback in the climate model, meaning that the extreme temperature increases forecast by the IPCC won't occur. Failure of the climate models to predict future warming is addressed in this article .

Slide 64-How James Hansen's 1988 forecast for the future was wildly exaggerated.

Slide 68-70-The fallacy of increased droughts, greater rainfall, and increasing hurricanes/cyclones due to elevated CO2, as also confirmed by these outside sources here ,here, here , and here.

Slide 81-Read the problems with the “Precautionary Principle”, and why applying it, makes no environmental or economic sense..

Slide82-How AGW alarmism is Undermining the Environmental Movement for dealing with the world's most important problems, and most importantly,

Slide 87-A Plea for Better Scientific Literacy And Integrity, exactly what the ICSC is striving-for through their affiliated national organizations, like the Climate Science Coalition of America (CSCA).

For further studying this issue,

Slide 88 proposes A Plea for Real Energy Research, which I would contrast with your political-capitalism based alternative energy failures or troubled firms.. For example for new technologies that could be implemented that could benefit the nation, read how the Norwegians have started testing thorium reactors, allegedly the safest nuclear reactors in existence.

Two excellent critiques of your speech ,first Charles Adler, Sun TV, Canada exposes the fatal flaws in your speech , and second, this article provides some Inconvenient Facts regarding global warming since Kyoto was signed, but NOT ratified by the US Senate. My own take on the speech, is that I find it somewhat hypocritical that before your climate speech, you felt it important enough to delivers some not too subtle threats that you use your administration to move climate agenda forward without Congress , here ,and before those two at the 150^th anniversary of the founding of the National Academy of Science, , he GOP was fixated on spending cuts, including research funding. you stated that the country couldn't afford a year or more delay in research starts, (because of the pace of technological change) Again, my take on this issue is that your opposition only wants to ensure that the nation is spending money WISELY on topics that have a significant change of improving the nation's competitiveness, technological lead, and most of all EMPLOYMENT. In that vein, I would strongly recommend that the US no longer recognize, or work with the IPCC, because that body has proven to be a political body, not a scientific one.(their mission statement doesn't ask the body to investigate global climate change, the IPCC charter requires that it investigate not climate change in the round, but solely global warming caused by human greenhouse emissions. (Any wonder that researchers find it) Similarly, any future research monies to be doled-out for climate change research should carry stipulations that all data sources, computer code, algorithms, assumptions, must be posted in as near-real-time as it possible, on the Internet, for the rest of the world to attempt to replicate the team's work You see, we can't afford to have another loss of data, and apparent MonkeyBusiness like what occurred with ClimateGate For an educated man, you sure are getting bad advice, or you're asking the wrong questions. Take a look at the Climate and the Carboniferous Period , and look for Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time, under the Similarities With Our Present World section . I call your attention to the Cambrian period (far left on the chart) section in which CO2 was estimated to be at a level of approximately between 4500 ppm and 7000ppm while temperature was a nearly constant approximately 25°C To me, it doesn't seem that we have anything to worry about as our CO2 levels have barely exceeded 400 ppm. As far as the IPCC's forecast,you should read this scathing critique of the IPCC. Similarly, Donna Laframboise, an experiemced newspaper columnist, examined the IPCC's work and discovered that much of the work is done by graduate students, not the world's top scientists, as the IPCC claims. Her published book is here. Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist and other books, dropped by Reason Foundation's studio in Los Angeles in March 2013 to talk about a curious global trend that is just starting to receive attention. Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener! And this is partially because of our use of fossil fuels. Take special notice of Mr. Ridley's comments regarding how wildlife has benefited from the use of fossil fuels, economic growth, and technology, and how alternative energies have destroyed the forests of the country of Haiti, as compared to the Dominican Republic, both countries sharing the same island. He also notes that fossil fuels don't compete with wildlife like so-called green energy does.

Another series you might want to view is The Church of Global Warming, six parts.

More importantly, perhaps is your answer to the question of why you saw it necessary to have your EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, declare CO2 as hazardous to humans health, totally rejecting the advice of Dr. Alan Carlin, Senior Operations Analyst, EPA. Dr. Carlin's interview with Executive Information Review regarding this issue is here .You seem to have made the same mistake that Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Jerry Brown made in attempting to steer citizens towards state goals of so-called mandatory minimum levels of renewable energy. Both Governors suffered severe unemployment, leading to significant budgetary challenges. Its too bad that you don't subscribe to the theory that the free market provides the best chance for all economies as described in Robert J. Lempert's, Climate Scientists Should Wear Adam Smith Ties.

Perhaps you'd like to take a quick climate change quiz .Don't worry if you don't do all that well, because many of us don't do well, initially, and therefore take a refresher course, Global Warming 101, by Dr. Roy Spencer, chief research scientist, University of Alabama, Huntsville, Alabama, and former Senior Scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

As Dr. Carter noted, one of the 20^th century’s greatest and Nobel Prize winner physicist, Richard Feynman, observed about science that:

“In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience; compare it directly with observation, to see if it works.
It’s that simple statement that is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.”

None of the five tests in this article supports or agrees with the predictions implicit in the greenhouse hypothesis as stated there. Richard Feynman is correct to advise us that therefore the hypothesis is invalid, and that many times over.

“The reality is, then, that no scientist on the planet can tell you with credible probability whether the climate in 2030 will be cooler or warmer than today. In such circumstances the only rational conclusion to draw is that we need to be prepared to react to either warming or cooling over the next several decades, depending upon what Nature chooses to serve up to us.

What is the best way forward?
Given that we cannot predict what future climate will be, do we still need national climate policies at all?
Indeed we do, for a primary government duty of care is to protect the citizenry and the environment from the ravages of natural climatic events. What is needed is not unnecessary and penal measures against carbon dioxide emissions, but instead a prudent and cost-effective policy of preparation for, and response to, all climatic events and hazards as and when they develop.
As Ronald Brunner and Amanda Lynch have argued in their recent book, Adaptive Governance and Climate Change, and many other scientists have supported too:
We need to use adaptive governance to produce response programs that cope with hazardous climate events as they happen, and that encourage diversity and innovation in the search for solutions. In such a fashion, the highly contentious ‘global warming’ problem can be recast into an issue in which every culture and community around the world has an inherent interest.”



Robert Bryce, a senior fellow with the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute, did a tremendous job in making it clear just how important fossil fuels are to our economy and why we won't be seeing any alternative energy option to our immediate energy uses. His discussion of how much energy the world uses every day (by referencing it the country of Saudi Arabia helps a lot, at least I thought so) and understand just little energy we get from alternatives. And Bryce didn't even mention the standby power, usually fossil-fueled, needed to ensure that when a customer flicks-on an electric switch, there is that constant BASELOAD POWER (only coal, oil, natural gas, or hydro can do this) ready to power the devices fed by the switch.
Mr. Bryce made the following points in that video. We (U.S.) consume 30 : Saudi Arabias in primary energy: daily
The U.S. consumes 10 Saudi Arabias worth of oil every day
The U.S. consumes 9 Saudi Arabias worth of coal every day
The U.S. consumes 7 Saudi Arabias worth of natural gas every day
The U.S. consumes 2 Saudi Arabias worth of hydro power every day
The U.S. consumes 1.5 Saudi Arabias worth of nuclear power every day
The U.S. consumes 0.5 Saudi Arabias worth of all-other non-hydro renewables every day (wind, solar, geothermal, and biofuels)
So, in essence, Bryce said the nation gets 50 times the energy from fossil fuels as we get from what he calls, “the darlings” of the alternative energy world (wind & solar).Bryce also goes on to explain that the total new coal-generated electrical capacity in the last 10 years is nearly the combined total of all new capacity of oil, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro .The interviewer, Steven Hayward, mentioned that the British Petroleum (BP) world energy report showed that the amount of new energy obtained from coal in the last 10 years was 5 times the new energy obtained from all renewables. In fact the US EIA recently released their lastest energy projections, Fossil Fuels to Dominate World Energy Use Through 2040 , which corresponds nicely with Mr. Bryce's view.
Next, Mr. Hayward had Mr. Bryce run through the differences between energy density vs energy scale. On the first issue, Bryce said that if we hadn't discovered oil, we would have had to invent it, as the energy density of gasoline is 80 times that of the best lithium batteries .Imagine trying to totally replace gasoline with batteries in all our vehicles.

On the power density issue, Bryce said that even a marginal natural gas well has about an energy density of 28 watt/meter^2,, while the best wind turbine only has an energy density of only 1 watt/meter². He went on to describe the utter futility/fantasy in trying to replace the country's all 300 gigawatts of coal -generated electricity with wind powered generation. Bryce calculates that trying to do would require 300 billion meters², which ultimately breaks-down to a total wind farm equivalent to the size of the country of Italy, 116K kilometers² And this doesn't address the loss of wildlife habitat and bird deaths from all these spinning turbines as is often the case with this “last-century's technology”

Pres. Obama, since global warming has paused for more 16 years (and the nation’s own Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said it's been 17 years and even the IPCC Head, Dr. Pachauri admitted temperature had been flat for 17 years), wouldn't it be wise to stop your war on coal, and let the free market give all consumers the maximum choice in forms of energy they individually want to purchase.? After all, since the AGW theory has been debunked and fossil fuels have historically helped build this nation and give the country its economic growth that has resulted in such a standard of living for almost all citizens that’s the envy of the world,.why would you want to deny this opportunity to any third-world country, looking to escape their poverty and lack of development?As compelling as their pitch sounds, renewables won't keep the stoves of the third-world burning, or lights lit.

So, Mr. Pres., please don't continue to hang this unexorcised poltergeist around the neck of the American economy, as it is unlikely to ever recover in your second term at all. Plus, focusing on AGW to the exclusion of other theories might preclude us from responding to Global Cooling, which is more likely as indicated here , here , here , and here .

Richard A Fletcher

rfletch2@san.rr.com