Vin Suprynowicz

The mailbag being nearly full, and your loyal correspondent thanks to a sinus headache having been shuffling around this past week like the archetypal Vulcan in the old “Spock’s Brain” Star Trek episode (third season, original series), herewith some recent missives of interest:

Brian writes in:

“Vin, thanks for the refreshing article ‘Greenland and the polar ice cap are melting.’ I am often irritated by articles claiming that we need to reduce man-made CO2 gas to save the planet from global warming. It is amazing that there are so many people (including government leaders) who believe we can alter global temperatures by using renewable energy sources.

“After reading your article, I am sure that you are aware that man-made CO2 emissions comprise only 0.117 percent of the total greenhouse gases that trap solar radiation and heat the earth’s atmosphere. Water vapor comprises the majority of the greenhouse gases. Eliminating human activity altogether would have little impact on the climate change.

“I am a retired aerospace engineer who spent more than 40 years in southern California designing satellites. Much of that time was devoted to the thermal design of satellites wherein we relied on various techniques to control the amount of incident solar energy absorbed and rejected by the satellite exterior surfaces. We were able to control the temperature of the satellites to within 2 to 3 degrees F of the predicted control temperature.

“To accomplish this achievement we had to account for energy radiated from the sun as well as the earth. I am quite familiar with how the earth’s atmosphere traps a portion of the sun’s energy spectrum and re-emits a portion of that energy in the infrared energy spectrum.

“The scientists can make all the statistical quotations they want but they cannot refute my basic assertion — man-made CO2 emissions comprise only 0.117 percent of the total greenhouse gases. The laws of physics will not allow 0.117 percent of the atmosphere to control the climate temperature.

“I fully recognize that CO2 emissions has become a convenient political issue to be used by many for their own selfish interests. Scientists are motivated by notoriety and funding for promoting this issue. Politicians likewise are motivated to use this issue to cast blame on their opposition. Reducing CO2 emissions is important for air quality but it cannot alter the planet’s global temperature.”

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“Hello Vin,” writes in Cassie from Michigan, a self-described fan of “The Black Arrow.”

“While not poor, so I can afford my inhalers, there is one thing you missed. The HFA propellant does not work as well as the CFCs! It’s much harder to use. Consequently, asthmatics may use their “rescue” inhaler more. The necessary drug is not well delivered. Because they have to use more, there are actually pharmacies reporting ‘inhaler abuse’ by patients and contacting their physicians!

“I know — I’m asthmatic, and I work in an industry that tracks whether physicians follow the ‘standard of care for asthmatics (among many other things — look up NCQA and then who their sponsors are.)

“The current standard of care is that an asthmatic should not have to use their rescue inhaler very often. Rather, they should be on non-generic, very expensive ‘controller’ inhalers. Guess who benefits? Even those people with Rx coverage have to pay a large co-pay for the controllers as none are generic. Hmm. They don’t help that much, either. They are steroid based. Lovely side effects from those steroids!

“Keep up the excellent work. If only more people were aware.”

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“Sir — Just a minor point,” writes in Charles from New Jersey: “Chlorinated hydrocarbons get into the upper atmosphere due to atmospheric turbulence. They would only tend to settle out in totally still air.

“My dispute with the extremist environmentalists is that they have not proven that the ozone hole is caused by refrigerants in the first place. Volcanoes spew out many tons of chlorinated compounds into the upper atmosphere, each one of which can destroy ozone. The damage caused by man-made chemicals may be insignificant in comparison with natural sources.”

I thanked Charles for his submission, adding that it’s also been known to rain frogs, on occasion. Presumably the frogs also got into the atmosphere due to “turbulence.” But I don’t know how much time or treasure we should really spend guarding ourselves against the long-term impact of frogs on the ozone layer.

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Jerry writes in: “I have been a reader of your editorials for some time now. In fact, in 2007 I became a member of the Libertarian Party. …

“I have just learned, via the Senate voting web page, that John Ensign has voted in favor of approving Geithner as Treasury Secretary. That is about the straw that has broken my Republican back.

“I would like to know how to become more involved in the Libertarian Party (I think that is a terrible name, should be the Liberty Party, I believe the arian on the end scares many folks off, it did me for years!) … Please let me know, I want to try to take back the ideals upon which America was founded.”

I responded: Hi, Jerry —

To be of any use, Libertarian political activity has to confront people with truths, and for the most part (in the immortal words of Jack Nicholson) they “can’t handle the truth.”

We have no choice but to tell them compulsion-based tax-funded schooling does more harm than good.

“You’d reduce school funding?” they reply. “Now, we’ll admit the schools need some reforms, but that takes money! You must want to breed us a generation of illiterates!”

We must respond: “No, the current system is breeding generations of functional illiterates, unprepared to challenge transparent government propaganda on global warming, species protection, government’s ‘need for enhanced revenues,’ etc. De Tocqueville found this the most literate nation on earth in the 1830s, decades before John Dewey and Horace Mann brought the monopoly state-schooling beast here, fully formed, from Prussia. America’s tax-funded government schools must be blown up.”

We have no choice but to tell them drug prohibition is an unenforceable moral evil, giving birth to the complete police state.

“You’d reduce penalties for pot, treating it as a medical rather than a legal problem? You want to turn all our kids into junkies!”

We must reply: “No, not ‘reduce penalties for pot.’ We must completely re-legalize cocaine and the opiates. When alcohol was re-legalized in 1933 violence fell off abruptly, and hard liquor consumption per capita has DROPPED, every decade since. By creating the perverse incentive to smuggle more potent extracts, it’s Prohibition that creates ‘junkies.’”

But these positions do not “sell,” politically. So anyone trying to win public office soon learns to pussy-foot around such issues, using euphemisms that allow the listener to avoid confronting these unpalatable truths.

At which point, Libertarian political activism becomes worse than useless, since it diverts limited funds and energies into promoting well-coiffed baby-kissers whose goal is to “get elected first; we’ll tackle those hard issues later.”

Mao Tse-Tung (I remain unconvinced of the usefulness of periodically changing the accepted English spellings of proper nouns that were never more than approximate transliterations, merely to sell “revised” textbook editions, shaming their owners into throwing out older books which still contain many interesting facts now considered Politically Inconvenient) was wrong about many things, but even he never contended that “Political Power grows out of the barrel of a really clever press release.”