LETTERS: MEMO DEBUNKS WARMING MYTHS

To the editor:

The following report shows global warming to be the manufactured myth it really is.

Memo To: Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

From: Judge Wanniski

Re: Global warming science

On CNN's "Crossfire" you argued that the science on global warming is decided. You threw out a number of statistics. I have to assure you that you know about 1 percent of what you need to know and that if you spent some serious time in exposing yourself to global-warming arguments, you would not be saying the things you are saying now. I notice in The Wall Street Journal that Gerald Seib has a nice piece on your presidential ambitions but asks the question: "If we have Al Gore, why do we need John Kerry?" There is nothing about Gore that is really out of the ballpark, excepting his religious commitment to global warming. I'm as much an environmentalist as the next person when it comes to protecting Mother Earth, but the science of global warming is hokum. Please also notice the Atlantic Monthly, which is already switching gears to suggest we may face a one-two punch of warming and cooling.

We have a big planet. The people on the planet cannot be seen from any satellite. They cannot be seen by an airplane flying at a few thousand feet, for goodness sake. The amount of greenhouse gases that are thrown into the ecosphere year in and year out are so much greater than the amount that humans produce that the whole debate becomes ridiculous.

I recently converted the amount of greenhouse gases into a standard of measure that might make more sense to people who, like you and others in Congress, are vulnerable to scientific baloney. You told "Crossfire" that the United States contributes 25 percent to 30 percent of the emissions that are contributed by mankind. Well, OK. But what are the magnitudes?

If we convert greenhouse emissions by all sources into a linear measure -- one mile, or 5,280 feet -- how much of that distance is contributed by these 6 billion ants on this giant planet? I ask people that question all the time, and the people who are opposed to doing anything say it might be as little as 100 feet, while those who support a global-warming treaty say it may be as high as two-thirds of a mile.

The answer, Senator, is not 3,000 feet or 100 feet. The amount contributed by mankind is half an inch. I kid you not. When I ask physicists the question, here in the United States or in Europe, the answer they give me off the top of their heads if more like 10 feet, but at least they are then in a position to say they can understand when I say the experts who do the estimating of the chemistry of the ecosphere tell me the right answer is more like half an inch. In other words, if you are correct in stating that the United States produces 25 percent of the greenhouse gases produced by mankind, we are producing an eighth of an inch. And I am making the most conservative estimates here, giving the environmentalists the best of the arguments. If we consider that methane has 30 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, mankind's contribution to the greenhouse effect is reduced to the tiniest fraction of an inch relative to one mile.

ED STEWART

Middlebrook