Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore) has lately been holding town hall meetings across the State of Oregon, something he does regularly around the turn of the new year. Yet due to the approaching high-profile election this year, with a field of Republican candidates seeking to unseat the incumbent Democrat Merkley, the first set of town halls the Senator hosted have gained increased attention from candidates, citizens, and citizen journalists.

Daylight Disinfectant’s Dan Sandini attended a town hall held in Multnomah County this past weekend, and recorded video footage here of a concerned citizen in the crowd voicing her desire to see Senator Merkley supporting efforts to legislate carbon use through carbon taxes and other government initiatives in order to stop the release of elemental carbon into the atmosphere, an emission that happens anytime carbon-based materials are burned. Scientists are currently in a heated debate over whether carbon emissions, from sources like wood-burning stoves, automobile exhaust, and even breathing, are significant contributors to change in the Earth’s climate.

Sandini, interested in getting another take on the issue, sent the video to Dr. Gordon Fulks, a PhD in Physics and known skeptic of significant man-made climate change and it’s alleged disastrous effects.

Watch the video of the concerned citizen’s question and Merkley’s congruous response, and then read Dr. Fulks’ response. You can decide for yourself, and as always, we encourage you to be active participants in our governmental system by attending these town hall meetings and engaging in discussion with public servants over whether or not it is the government’s place to pass legislation in accordance to emergent and complex scientific theories.

This is typical hysteria from Senator Merkley. He uses the now familiar arguments that have no validity in establishing a link between man-made carbon dioxide and the various phenomena he mentions. Merkley offers NO arguments supporting his contention that man-made CO2 causes catastrophic warming, probably because he believes it is self-evident. He cannot see how inconsistent this is with most scientific arguments on both sides of this issue that point to the enormous complexity of the climate system. That’s the rationale for the billion dollar climate models that fail so spectacularly. Alarmists cannot have it both ways: self-evident and extremely complex. The reality is of course closer to extremely complex.

Are Merkley’s bark beetle infestations, catastrophic forest fires, droughts, and alleged declining mountain snow related to an alleged warming in the Pacific Northwest? NO! As with all the fables that the scientifically illiterate weave about Global Warming, there is a shred of truth to some allegations but no truth to the inferences they draw from them.

The most obvious nonsense from Merkley is the allegation that our Pacific Northwest climate has warmed in recent decades. It has in fact cooled for the several decades where he alleges ill effects from warming. We are now back to the average annual temperatures typical of the early 1900s. This alone negates everything he said.

Other nonsense from Merkley:

1) Bark beetle infestations are not significantly affected by warmer or colder winters.
2) Catastrophic forest fires have much more to do with poor forest management than with summer droughts. Summer droughts are the norm around here.
3) Severe Droughts in the Pacific Northwest, like warm periods, follow cyclical patterns related to ocean cycles. Our least annual precipitation in the historical record occurred in 1929, with several other dry years through the Dust Bowl up to 1953. Over the last ten years, we have been very close to normal.
4) Mountain snow pack did decline on average from the high about 1950 but has since recovered.
5) Oysters probably do not like “carbolic acid” (phenol) but that is not what you get when CO2 dissolves in water. Merkley needs to get the terminology correct!
6) Alleged ‘ocean acidification’ is also largely nonsense. Any minute changes in ocean pH from carbon dioxide are far less than changes from natural causes.

In short, Merkley needs to learn something about Global Warming before displaying profound ignorance.

Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA

LINK:  http://watchdogwire.com/northwest/2014/01/08/merkley-opines-on-clim...