By Vince Smith,
Big Rock, Ill.
Although occasionally offering my own personal thoughts and perspectives to this publication and its readers, I generally try to avoid attacking other contributors who of course have their own views which sometimes differ markedly from my own. Even recently, with great effort I resisted the impulse to respond to a contribution from Leonard Wass (July 14), wherein he disrespectfully characterized Judy Siedlecki’s contribution (June 30) pertaining to the recent Supreme Court rulings, as emotional rants and tirades, while he had the audacity to absurdly suggest that The Voice should only be publishing contributions which happen to coincide with his views from the right side of the political spectrum! But I did resist…until now.
With the delivery of the July 21 edition of The Voice, another of Bill Suhayda’s unenlightened contributions has appeared, and I find myself unable to refrain from comment. According to Suhayda, we live in a world of national and global chaos, all because of Joe Biden and those of us who subscribe to the reality of climate change. Suhayda is certainly allowed to have his own opinions, but in sharing those opinions, he should be more careful to distinguish fact from meaningless rhetoric.
More specifically, he begins his commentary by claiming that on the advice of Greta Thunberg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the president of the United States shut down our oil refineries. Besides the absurdity of that claim, he goes on to characterize “16 year old” (she’s actually 19) Greta as a barmaid, and claims that because neither woman ever had a science class on climate change, neither of them is capable of understanding the concept.
After having spent a career in the oil industry, I’m well aware that the shut down of any refinery is neither quick, nor easy, and it’s not the president who decides when it’s appropriate to do so. Regarding the science class enrollments of these two women, either Suhayda is openly confessing to hacking into private school records, or he’s pulling another of his so-called facts from Facebook routines. And further, if one wishes to understand the reaction mechanism of ethanol to acetic acid (vinegar) conversion, an organic chemistry class would be mandatory, but understanding climate change depends only on a few facts, some simple logic, and basic math. No class enrollment IS required.
In its current and most widely accepted use, climate change refers to the (possible?) impact of human activity on the environment of our planet, most notably reflected in temperature. Suhayda points out, throughout its history, the earth has experienced a pattern of cyclic fluctuations in atmosphere and temperature, with a trend toward higher temperatures over thousands of years. But what he fails to incorporate into his thinking is this “blip” in the baseline of earth’s historic past, the arrival of humans. The arrival of man, the global growth in population, the industrial revolution and the automobile are all relative newcomers to a planet more than 4.5 billion years old. To expect that these newcomers would have little or no effect on the conditions and trends that existed during the previous four billion years would seem naive at best.
After we first burned wood to keep warm, we burned coal to power our factories. Now we burn gasoline to power our cars. All of these activities produce carbon dioxide, a gas which goes nowhere and effectively serves to insulate the planet. As the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere rises, the more effective that insulation becomes, and temperatures go up. Fortunately for us, the green plants of the world continue to consume a great deal of this carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, but ironically as more and more of the world’s vegetation is being eliminated to accommodate our increasing population, the trend toward higher amounts of atmospheric CO2 and higher temperatures will continue. In terms of basic math: More CO2 + less greenery = higher temperatures >> ultimately an unlivable planet!
Similar to most problems, those who have been most responsible for its generation are the most likely to provide for its solution, but the first step in that process has to be a recognition that the problem exists. Rather than employing the classical propaganda techniques in support of his climate change denial, perhaps Suhayda could use his scientific insights to help us address the record temperatures across the globe, the more powerful storms, and the more frequent devastating wildfires, regardless of their causes. We all have a role to play in preserving this planet for future generations, and we would value that of Mr. Suhayda.