Truth was in short supply at climate meeting

Truth was in short supply at the Citizens' Climate Lobby, held at Community Hall on Friday, Nov. 17. Out of sheer curiosity, I attended the meeting, having braced myself against what I knew would be an onslaught of tired, shopworn, left wing/progressive dogma. I wasn't disappointed. I sat through two hours of a slick, well-oiled, multimedia presentation given to a docile, pre-sold audience of about 100.

Early in the confab, one of the presenters asked some in the audience how they felt about the fires this summer, particularly regarding all the seemingly endless days of thick, choking smoke. A microphone was passed around and a few sad tales emerged. The heat, the fires, the wind, the smoke, the lack of rain, and the fact your chickens weren't laying eggs were all due to climate change, so the narrative went. Unfortunately, this is where CCL's logic breaks down.

Inconvenienced as they might have been, the people who spoke were reacting to weather-related events, not a change in climate. Yet, for CCL, this became a selling point. Nutty weather is now proof of climate change.

The big lie is that an excess amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is responsible for our changing climate. What changing climate? Call me when they're swimming and water skiing on Lake Pend Oreille on New Year's Day. There is no proof. There is supposition, there are computer models, there is a fossil record, and rings around trees. There are rocks with stories to tell, and secrets to be learned from 1,000 year-old ice, and patterns perceived where none exist.

But aside from volcanic activity, which skyrockets the CO2 count, there is no evidence to suggest carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms or cools the Earth. And yet, CCL, with its whacky "Carbon Fee and Dividend" scheme, with hundreds of chapters throughout the U.S., is willing to assist in kick-starting a worldwide inflationary depression just because of a blind subservience to an unproven scientific theory.

Is it possible that this rapidly growing movement to levy carbon tax on our economy has little to do with climate change and everything to do with social change?

CORT GIFFORD

Sandpoint