Enough with the hype on sea-level, climate change

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Regarding the recent over-the top, breathless commentary on climate change (“Earth is upping volume on its climate change warnings,” The Herald, Oct. 22):

The Herald powers-that-be really need to stop pushing “existential crisis hype.” The damage increase caused by storms is directly related to the number of people who inhabit an area. Cliff Mass, U.W. climate scientist, has given recent arguments that temperature increases do not substantially increase the intensity of storms.

But my biggest beef is your sea-level math. Sea levels have, since the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, have risen about 1 foot per year. So, your “sea level rise record” of 3.8 inches from 1993-2022 took place over 30 years. Thirty percent of one foot per century is 12.7 inches per century, barely different from one foot per century. Some “record” indeed!

Hysteria only serves to make ever more people skeptical, as our history over the last 40 years show nearly all predicted climate disasters wildly off-base. Computer projections have come nowhere near the actual data collected during this time. To heed such hype has led to energy shortfalls which only look to become worse.

If we have an “existential crisis” then we should be turning to nuclear power plants at this point. They provide largely carbon-free energy, and can power everything from water desalinization, manufacturing carbon-neutral fuels, to powering every electric vehicle we could possibly build, with plenty to spare. I would like to add I was encouraged to see The Herald devoting front-page space to new and modern nuclear reactors recently.

David W. Dahlberg

Snohomish