To the Journal editor:

There appears to be an explosion of amateur scientists opining when it is clear they haven’t a clue as to how much they don’t know about the subject. There are a few others that should know better yet claim to know more than they could possible know.

With the launch of the RSS and UAH space-based radiometers, the term Global Warming has largely fallen out of favor as they have detected minimal warming for more than two decades. This term has been replaced by Climate Change. However, without net warming, climate change must consist of what was occurring at point A now happens at point B.

This is almost certainly a “heat island” effect (cities, roads) along with a change in reflectivity, absorptivity and emissivity of the terrain which the prevailing winds cross (corn instead of buffalo grass). Yet carbon dioxide has survived as the villain. One might ask: if there is no net global heating what does CO2 have to do with a changing climate? My guess is nothing. So why are we still trying to reduce CO2, a largely beneficial and necessary gas? Some botanists project a 50% increase in crop yields globally with CO2 levels 300ppm above present levels.

There exists more than 800 million years of data from the ice core(s) and sandstone formation that indicate numerous ice ages and warm periods with higher and lower CO2 levels. In fact if one includes some of the early geological periods one notes CO2 levels above 2000 ppm while the earth and humans were evolving to the present. In fact the present period is a historic low for CO2 levels. If natural sources could produce levels about 2000 ppm why can one not expect present levels to be from mostly natural causes?

As an aside: there is no such thing as a “heat trapping gas.” Any material that absorbs re-emits as soon as the incident source is extinguished. CO2 only slows diffusion (lapse rate) to outer space.

I think it should be evident to anyone that the baseline must be a gradual change of global temperatures as the earth traverses around the sun on an elliptical (not circular) orbit hence a changing solar flux.

The only thing that prevents me from calling the global warming/climate change a hoax is I would be falling into my own trap of claiming to know more that I could possibly know.