Just two weeks before the mid-term election day, on October 23, there was a mid-sized story, page width by 4.75 inches, which was buried within the obituary section of our daily news(?)paper with the headline: “U.S. report: Efforts to suck carbon from air must be ramped up.” 

The headline makes one wonder if it really isn’t an opinion column.  It carried a by-line credit to Seth Borenstein of the Associated Press and datelined Washington.  Included was a picture looking like the real thing but labeled an illustration that showed one of the designs to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. 

From my scientific point of view, what a stupid and expensive, wasteful and possibly fatal program. 

In my memory from science class at Lee elementary school in Tulsa, we were taught that there is a joint dependency for life itself between the floral and animal species.  The plants need to have carbon dioxide to live by taking in the CO2, using the carbon to make their bodies, and “breathing out” oxygen, which animal life, including the human race must have to live.  So it appears to me that these “scientists” who have bought into the mantra that carbon dioxide must be removed from the air were not taught the same as were we in the Class of ‘43. 

The headline of the story made me think they were referring to elemental carbon particles, rather than the composition of carbon dioxide. 

There is no problem in my mind about removing carbon particles from the air, as they are very detrimental to human life.  Just remember the coal miners deadly condition called “black lung” that was caused by breathing the coal dust in the mines before the development of large ventilation systems or the use of breathing through filter masks.

Another fallacy in the fake science world is that carbon dioxide is that the gas is one of the “blanket gasses” – if not the most effective one. 

Not so, according to my education.  Further, the push to end gasoline- or diesel-powered piston engines for transportation is another fallacy given that the exhaust from (at least the former) consists primarily of carbon monoxide, which is well known to be a very poisonous gas, which in enough concentration can kill a human in minutes.

On the other hand, there are annually massive forest fires in the West, most recently California, which produce so much more CO2 than do autos that a move to prevent them would be much more helpful and less deadly to those folks.  Some forest “experts” – not of the ‘tree-hugger’ movement – have blamed the size and ferocity of them on the rules against clearing the trash of dead vegetation from the forest land, and even preventing residents from clearing their own property.  Being California, though, does that surprise anyone. 

It occurred to me that if they would build their houses and buildings out of concrete and steel they might withstand a nearby fire and serve as firebreaks to stop the spread.

There is, however, a much more sinister possibility that came to my attention, by accident, back in 1973.  My youngest son was 11 and in the Cub Scouts Weebelos den in Colorado and our pack had a practice of taking the boys on a campout in the mountains.  Each boy had to have a dad responsible for him present.

 After we had the boys in the tents, we dads sat around the campfire and got acquainted, talking about our vocations. 

When, during my turn, the subject was finding and producing oil and gas, one of the other dads stated that we were going to be “put out of business.” 

I asked, “Then how will you feed, cloth, heat, cool and transport the people?” 

His reply was to the effect that “we will reduce the population by starvation or eradication.” 

My question then was, “What if the majority remaining took a dim view of that operation and, being armed, would resist?” 

He retorted to the effect that “we will disarm the population or use gas.” 

The shocker came with his turn to state a vocation. He was a junior high school science teacher.

Going on today?