Climate Change

The big story in The Sun this past week was the unforeseen storm. In the editorial, "Feeling powerless" (July 3), the question asked was this a "freak occurrence?" Your answer makes sense: "Climate science suggests that global warming will make unusual and severe weather much more common. " However, I have a suggestion. Instead of global warming, use climate chaos. What I witnessed in Baltimore on the Friday night of the storm was climate chaos. Only a head-in-the-sand politician would deny that human activity is causing climate chaos.

With the November midterms past, scores of Democratic congressmen are preparing themselves to join the other 14.8 million unemployed Americans. This shift poses new challenges, but it also presents new opportunities. Just as striking as what Democrats accomplished in this productive, albeit controversial, legislative session is what they did not accomplish. In particular I am referring to climate change. If ever there was a time for a sweeping legislative package that tackles carbon emissions to come out of Washington, this was it. With the most liberal U.S. government in decades, we still did not do it. Now, maybe you think that climate change is a hoax and that we dodged a bullet by dropping the bill, or maybe you think that climate change will kill us all and that the do-nothings in Congress screwed up again.

There was a rather perplexing statement in your article about using waste wood to heat homes and businesses ("Oldest fuel getting a new look," Dec. 25). The article suggested that since burning anything puts carbon into the atmosphere, some environmentalists doubted that burning wood for heat would combat climate change. Have these environmentalists heard of the carbon cycle? If you grow a tree, the tree absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and combines it with water to make wood.

Not only has the GOP lost the support of female, black, Latino and Asian voters, they've also lost the support of those concerned about the diversity of the natural world, and how that diversity will be impacted by climate change ("What went wrong," Nov. 8). Wouldn't it be something if House Speaker John Boehner, who indicated that he understood the risks of climate change in 2008 only to backtrack under tea party pressure, announced that he also understood the lessons of Hurricane Sandy and would now work in a bipartisan fashion to craft legislation that would limit carbon emissions?

A recent letter to the editor confused long-term shifts in the Earth's climate with global warming ("Snow does not prove global warming," Readers respond, Feb. 16). Scientists know the Earth goes through different orbital configurations that bring it closer to or farther from the sun. Those shifts take place over tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. Recent climate change, however, has taken place in a relatively short period of time. The sun and other natural factors haven't changed over that time period.

I believe there is climate change going on, although I also believe it is mostly a naturally occurring phenomenon. Statements like yours ("This year's extraordinary weather events - droughts, floods, heat waves, and the like.... ") do not help your case ("What about the climate?" Oct. 19). These events have been happening since I can remember and certainly before that. You leave out two points of interest. First, what will be the impact on the economy if the U.S. steps up its attempt to control the climate?

Dave Miceli is right (Readers Respond, July 9) that heat in summer and snow in winter are normal for Maryland. But both heat and snow have been reaching extremes that are not "normal" but are part of a disturbing climate trend. This May was the warmest on record in the 20th century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They report that the "combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May was the warmest on record, at 1.24°F (0.69°C)

For almost 30 years now, Hieronimus & Co. in its various radio broadcasts, television, print, online, and other public forums has addressed the increasing weather extremes as a result of global warming. This discussion began in earnest in 1985 among scientists, and only now is it becoming self-evident with the October surprise of Hurricane Sandy, not to mention the severe droughts, floods, record temperatures worldwide, and other anomalous weather patterns and their deleterious impacts on animals, nature and humans.

Last month, a Republican-aligned polling firm called on hunters and fishermen nationwide to get their views. Some of the results were unsurprising: Outdoorsmen regard themselves as politically conservative and register Republican over Democratic by a more than 2-to-1 ratio. But here's one response that may have caught President Barack Obama and his re-election team by surprise, if they noticed it at all: A majority of these sportsmen believe global warming is the cause of this past summer's high temperatures and want the White House and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.