Those who push climate agenda don’t care about U.S. — or deer

Dear editor:

I was distressed to read Rand Christensen’s letter in the Sept. 19 issue. Much damage has been done in the name of climate change (formerly global warming, formerly global cooling).

When scientists first realized that Venus has an atmosphere that is mostly carbon dioxide and that it is much warmer that earth, they put two and two together and concluded that the carbon caused the warmer temperatures.

That is analogous to saying, “I don’t drink and I don’t have any elephants in my front yard. Therefore, if you don’t drink, you won’t have any elephants either.” (Not even pink ones!)

The temperature of a planet depends mainly on two things: distance from a heat source and air pressure. If you have ever been hiking or used a pressure cooker, you know that as air pressure increases, so does the temperature. Jupiter is five times as far from the sun as we are. In the upper atmosphere where it is almost a vacuum, the temperature is about -300 degrees Fahrenheit. But as you go down through the atmosphere, the temperature is tens of thousands of degrees above zero.

Depending on which scientist you believe, the atmospheric pressure of Venus is 92 times or 93 times or 94 times as dense as the atmosphere on earth. It is so dense that it is compressed into a supercritical state, almost a liquid. This causes average temperatures at the surface of about 864 degrees Fahrenheit.

Why is Venus’ atmosphere so thick when it is almost the same size as the earth? The answer is centrifugal force. The earth spins around its axis at more than 1,000 miles per hour. Venus spins backward at about 3 miles per hour, so the air just sits there and hugs the planet. In addition, Earth has a huge moon that pulls the atmosphere upward, just as, to a lesser extent, it pulls the tides upward. So reducing the carbon content of the earth will not do anything but make the United States poorer and China richer. The people that push the climate agenda don’t care anything about the United States -- or the mule deer.

Neva Freiermuth

Greybull