P S Norac

Bill, Sandra and I both enjoyed hearing from you. As you read our material you see that we put a strong emphasis on parents teaching their children to reason. It is very encouraging to see you and your 16 year old daughter doing this.

Your question was where the number 2583 came from. In researching information for our story Cousin Eddy Takes on Greenhouse Gases, we turned to the article in Wikipedia entitled “Atmosphere of Earth”, which at that time reported that carbon dioxide made up 387 ppm (parts per million) of Earth’s atmosphere; that has changed slightly now, but at that time these were the figures we were working with. We subtracted 387 from 1,000,000: which came to 999,613. This gave us the ratio of 999,613 to 387. Simplifying the equation, dividing 999,613 by 387, gave us the ratio of 2582.97, rounded off to 2583, to 1.

We will be posting the following on our website: www.psnorac.com but wanted to share it with you and your daughter.

IT’S REALLY SIMPLE:

THERE ARE TOO MANY VARIABLES TO USE TREES TO DETERMINE TEMPERATURE

We recently received a letter from Bill (last name withheld for privacy). While composing my response a storyline came into mind. As a result let me tell you about Bill Allen:

Bill’s family had lived in America for centuries. His family settled here almost one hundred years before the United States was the United States. When the English came to Maine to harvest the virgin forests for needed lumber to build their ships, Bill Allen’s family was part of the communities that came into existence to support this industry. It is said that the largest city in Maine, Portland, has one of its main thoroughfares named for this activity: Forest Avenue.

The Allen family fortunes increased from one generation to the next, from a log cabin to a large brick farmhouse. This is where Bill grew up. He inherited this beautiful brick farmhouse, as well as a large parcel of land with virgin timber that had never been cut. This parcel of land had been passed along for generations, untouched, viewed as security against the future possibility that the family would experience financial hard times. As the vicissitudes of life had been kind, the Allen family had never had to cash in this resource. From generation to generation the Allen men had viewed this possession with pride, grooming the trees to assure the best quality of lumber: as another might have pride in possessing, cherishing and caring for a highly valued diamond.

Since Bill was aging he knew that his daughters, one a lawyer the other a doctor, would not have the same pride in the trees that he and his ancestors had. As a result he came to the decision to harvest these trees and have the gratification of understanding the true value of this long cherished and protected inheritance.

When the word got out about this virgin lumber being available, the lumber community was abuzz with anticipation about the quality of this timber. Bill was getting offers double and triple what he had originally expected. Then he got a strange call. Steve Watson inquired how old Bill imagined this timber to be. When Bill’s answer was “hundreds of years old,” Steve became very excited, exclaiming this was “perfect, just what we’re looking for.” Going on, Steve explained that he was a scientist and wanted to study the growth patterns of these trees. Arrangements were made for the two men to meet.

After the meeting, Bill walked into the house with a big smile on his face. His wife asked, rhetorically, “How did it go?” knowing from his expression that it had gone well.

“Well, we’re going to have enough firewood for the next few years,” was the response.

“You’re not going to turn those beautiful trees into firewood!” his wife exclaimed.

Bill grinned. “No, but as the trees are delimbed, they’ll cut the branches into firewood for us; and we’re getting over three times what I had expected per board foot.”

“Wow! They must have really wanted those trees.”

“Actually they want to study the trees to determine what the temperature had been for the corresponding years,” Bill explained. “When they explained what they were doing, I said that didn’t make sense. But they were determined and at that price I had no reason to argue.” Bill shrugged, “Just between you and me, they’re going on a fool’s errand.”

“But, they must be highly educated to have that backing!” his wife protested.

“Yeah, educated fools,” Bill grinned. “You remember about five years ago, that spring it was so cold the apple trees didn’t blossom until about two weeks after their normal flowering time? Then the weather turned so hot and dry that we really didn’t get much crop that year. Reason would say the trees didn’t grow much that year. Yet the average temperature for the year might have been on the high side, but the tree growth wouldn’t show it. The temperature around trees is completely conditional to the weather. There is no way that trees can be used to determine temperature; there are just too many variables,” Bill concluded.

It is very difficult to know these facts and understand that intelligent, educated people would not be capable of seeing this. In our article Intellectual Power we bring out the fact that there are highly educated people who do not have a comprehensive mind and that are incapable of bringing a theory to its proper conclusion. In Cousin Eddy we talked about his tendency to take off like a loose wheel, taking on a project with very little preparation and comprehension.

The question I have is: Are the Greenhouse Gas people being motivated and driven by the extreme left who have expressed their desire to bring harm to capitalism and industry? Or is it simply the lack of soundness of mind? Clearly their advancing the need for further regulations that will cause our electric bills to skyrocket demonstrates a lack of sensitivity for the common man’s ability to meet his family budget.

Please visit our Blog at psnorac.blogspot.com and comment on whether you feel the Greenhouse Gas advocates are motivated by the extreme left or do they just lack the comprehensive understanding of these common sense things?