Climate change a political football

Climate change a political football

An April 27 letter states that CO2 is the main and/or only cause of global warming, and asks if all scientists are liars. I have seen some outrageous statements by climate "deniers" and some outright lies by "warmers," e.g. the snow in the Himalayas will melt entirely in two years, tornadoes and hurricanes are caused by warming, the Gulf Stream will stop, freezing England.

All this is denied by the UN body the IPCC, which believes in warming. We also have been told that warming will produce starvation, poverty and disease. Longer growing cycles do this?

So please pardon my skepticism when I see a claim that wind power is cheaper than oil or gas. Supporters of wind project low costs by assuming power output 24 hours a day. Six hours a day is the average. The U.S. Energy Info Admin. projects costs of power in 2018 as nuclear 5-8 cents/kwhr, clean coal 14, advanced natural gas 10-11, wind 9-15, and solar 28-41.

Also a wind farm producing enough power to serve 800,000 homes will require 10,000 mills, covering 375 square miles. (National Renewable energy Lab among other sources.) Wind and solar account for 2 percent of our energy needs, and will not be significant for the next 20 years.

A practical way of storing electricity would indeed solve many problems. Twenty years ago batteries had 1 percent of efficiency needed to be practical. Now it is 10 percent. We can hope in 20 years batteries will be developed that will be commercially viable. Right now it is pie in the sky.

Climate change has become a political football, with lies and misinformation on both sides. Truth seekers might want to visit the site icecap.us manned by some of the 17,000 scientists that have become skeptical.

Daniel Pradt

Glen Ellyn