DEAR EDITOR:

The ink and airtime being devoted to global warming and the Copenhagen summit makes one wonder what the heck all the fuss is really about. Former Vice President, moviemaker, Academy Award winner, Nobel Prize recipient and self-proclaimed Internet inventor Al Gore has announced there is nothing to debate on the subject. He has refused debates with several leading scientists who questioned some of his findings.

Simultaneously, a large number of "scientists" followed Gore's example and declared the subject closed and inarguable. Does not science claim to be the essence of questions? Has there ever been another subject upon which scientists have refused debate? What is the agenda of those who stifle questions? This writer suspects the answer to that question has yet to be determined.

Let us take a somewhat whimsical look at global warming. We are told the polar ice caps will melt. I can state unequivocally that ice and snow will evaporate without an increase in temperature. At the North and South poles, lacking periodic snowfall, the ice caps would disappear, even with typical polar temperatures.

While a rise in temperature would probably accelerate ice cap melting, it would also increase the evaporation from the oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, streams and ponds. Ever hear the word, "off-set"? What happens to water that evaporates? That's right, it becomes water vapor and ultimately condenses into clouds. Clouds often produce rain and snow, useful in cooling the earth's surface and they inevitably block sunshine with their shadows, another cooling influence.

We also hear those ominous words, "green-house gases!" The most commonly mentioned greenhouse gas and evidently the one most feared is CO2, carbon dioxide. Not carbon monoxide, mind you, which is a deadly poison, but carbon dioxide; the smoking gun that proves global warming is a man-made phenomena.

It has been more than 50 years since I took high school chemistry, yet I distinctly recall that CO2 is the gas exhaled by all living members of the animal kingdom, from humans to the fleas on your dog. I am a bit surprised that Al Gore and his cronies have not suggested we could reduce global warming by limiting our breathing to once a minute. I guess it doesn't fit their agenda.

Something else I learned about CO2 in high school or perhaps even earlier. Just as we breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, plants breathe carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, thus explaining where the term "greenhouse gases" came from: a greenhouse is a place where plants are raised in a healthy environment. Why would anyone want to suffocate fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers?

So, we warm up the planet a little, causing a longer growing season and generating more clouds. More clouds bring more rain, nurturing crops and ending droughts. More CO2 in the air caused by an increasing population gives us healthier, more plentiful crops, ending world hunger; and all those clouds and rain cool everything back down again. So, what's the problem?

Bill Stafford
Marietta