No one can seriously deny that man’s existence on Earth has contributed to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists crudely date the widespread use of fire by man as 125,000 years ago. Obviously, the warming caused from those fires can’t be measured.

Today there are many who believe carbon dioxide is the pollutant that if not curtailed will soon destroy our planet. Former President Barack Obama, in his Jan. 20, 2015, State of the Union address, explicitly designated global warming as the existential threat to the world’s future. Quoting CNN: ”What President Obama described as the greatest threat to future generations was neither terrorism nor ISIS. It wasn’t nuclear weapons in rogue states either. His statement that ‘no challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change’ was met with scattered, muted applause.”

In the 1790s, a Swiss theologian and a Scottish geologist began an inquiry into the gigantic ice fields that once covered a major part of Earth. Numerous theories evolved over the following 220 years. The climate record over the past 500,000 years show four great ice ages, spaced at about 100,000 year intervals with ice depths up to 10,000 feet. Other ice ages of lesser magnitudes are roughly spaced at 41,000, 23,000 and 10,000 years. The 5,000-foot-deep glacier that buried Chicago 11,000 years ago is long gone.

The Colorado Geological Survey has cataloged a dozen glaciers in the state that were forming 500 years ago during the Little Ice Age, a period from 1300 to 1850. Colorado’s new glaciers began their retreat in 1850 due to global warming.

Over 30,000 American scientists and science majors have signed petitions to back off of the catastrophic scenario of global warming. Ice ages, large and small, tell us man is a minor contributor. Intelligent folks can, on their own, easily uncover unwelcome, yet very legitimate research. The sun’s varying distance from the Earth along with Earth’s own orbital wobble are the elephants in the room; man is the banty rooster.

Floyd Diemoz

Glenwood Springs