Dear Editor,

Global warming and its dire consequences expounded in an article in the West Seattle Herald (July 8); “A Better Way To Slow Global Warming” is an example of what weather Channel founder John Coleman described as the greatest scam in history.

The article’s apocalyptic, sky is falling predictions: “flooding In the Northeast, higher temperatures that could wipe out maple sugar farms, apple orchards and cranberry bogs in new England, rising sea levels that will lead to coastal flooding are typical of the hysterical scare tactics now being used to convince the American public to accept more draconian government control over their lives.

These predictions are dead wrong and are based on a global temperature rise of less than 1ºC for the entire 20th century!

One thing we can agree with is the article’s criticism of cap and trade solutions to the problem “cap and trade would create a volatile market -- to the tune of $1 trillion -- in carbon futures and derivatives. Energy prices would be unpredictable, making it difficult for consumers and businesses to plan and budget their energy use.

It requires the creation of a large, complex, regulatory bureaucracy to monitor and police the system.” Both cap and trade or the alternative preferred by the author of this article, a revenue neutral tax on carbon would result in a crippling of our economy, decreased productivity and much higher energy costs for consumers. The national Association of Manufacturers made the following predictions:

* Job losses: 1.8 to 7 million

*Family tax increase: $739 to $6752

* Electricity cost increases: 44 to 129 percent

* Gasoline price increases: $.61 to $2.53 per gallon

* Natural gas increases: 108 to 146 percent

This destruction of our already weakened economy is a non-Issue created by the government and promoted by a complicit mass media.

Human activity has had little effect on, and is not the cause of, global warming. More and more scientists are publicly refuting the anthropogenic (human caused) global warming hypothesis. Scientists from NASA, the EPA, the Navy, the Air Force, the Defense and Energy departments and major universities have joined in debunking Al Gore and other people of his ilk. There is a direct correlation to temperature change versus solar activity, a correlation that seems to be lost in history and disregarded by global warming hucksters.

Looking at the coldest recorded periods on earth -- from about 1645 to 1715 (the depth of the Little Ice Age) -- from about and today’s global temperatures we find the real cause of global temperature changes. During the lowest recorded sunspot activity, a period known as the Maunder Minimum, there were no sunspots for five decades resulting in the freezing temperatures of the Little Ice Age. Increased temperatures, beginning in the late 1900’s, occurred when solar activity was at it’s the highest in 11,000 years. If we adopt economy destroying schemes like cap and trade or carbon taxes global warming will not be affected. Even if the US were a party to the Kyoto Protocol and European nations and other signatories were in full compliance the treaty would reduce the earth’s future temperature by an estimated 0.07ºC by 2050 -- an amount too small even to verify.

Unfortunately, while these inconvenient truths are becoming better known and more and more people discount the warming hoax, there is a possible, and exactly opposite, danger for the human race. Solar experts have disclosed that in the last two years almost no new sunspots were observed while hundreds were expected in the new solar cycle. This minimal solar activity probably is a precursor of significant cooling of the earth.

You can imagine the scene 10 years from now when our government, abetted by its alarmist allies have shut down coal-fired power plants while global temperatures are plunging toward those last seen in the mid-1800’s. It is global cooling, not global warming we should be concerned about preparing for. It is interesting to note that Al Gore, the supposed authority regarding global warming will not debate, will not answer unscripted questions and will not be interviewed except by journalists acceptable to him. Al Gore and his alarmist allies are Pied Pipers leading this country in the wrong direction towards a solution that will accomplish the exact opposite of what should be done.

At this point all it would take to change to the disastrous course our nation, and the world, is taking is to have a few news organizations -- like the West Seattle Herald -- to disseminate the truth about global warming, but will they?

HEB Shasteen
Pres. People Against Rip-Offs
West Seattle