Climate change

Mr. Tommy Todd's letter of Aug. 16 provides a strong argument for federally mandated caps on carbon.

He represents an industry that currently relies on cheap coal for electricity production and resists change; his arguments are unfounded.

He argues that last year's global temperature dropped ".65C to .75C" and that the cooling totally wipes out "the recorded warming over the past 100 years."

Wrong: The cooling last year was 10 times less than he claims, which is .065C to .075C. According to NASA's GISS (whom he cites) from 1908 to 2008, the temperature has risen .84C degrees.

Mr. Todd pooh-poohs the conclusions of experts in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in favor of the opinion of "environmental chemist" Kimonori Itoh.

In 1978, Mr. Itoh obtained a Ph.D, not in environmental chemistry but in industrial chemistry. He is now in the engineering department of Yokomona University. You might as well ask your dentist for his expert views on global warming.

This, as an aside, is what Mr. Mahan (letter of Aug. 8) is actually doing. The 35,000 scientists "refuting global warming" he alluded to was a petition that considers anyone with a BS as a scientist.

Of the Ph.Ds who signed this petition, there were indeed dentists and there were also over 1,500 medical doctors and veterinarians.

Mr. Todd is the GM and CEO of Glades Electric. It would be disingenuous for him not to be aware of the electric power industry's impact on the atmosphere, specifically on the atmospheric concentration of carbon gases.

The largest use of fossil fuel is in electrical production, using mainly coal. Since the industrial revolution, man has come to rely on fossil fuels and we currently take 7.5 billion metric tons of fossil fuel that was inert underground and burn it with oxygen to produce 28 billion metric tons of carbon gas in our atmosphere. Since the industrial revolution, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased 35 percent to 385 ppm and climbing.

He makes it abundantly clear that we cannot rely on industry to self regulate. The stated mission of Glades Electric is to provide "services at competitive prices," this apparently regardless of the cost to our environment.

Louise Laferriere
Sebring