On global warming, climate change and weather

It is disappointing to me to continue to see misleading pictures of “smokestacks” in articles about “global warming” or “climate change.” This includes one in Tuesday’s Review-Journal.

Our power plants combine a hydrocarbon (mostly hydrogen and carbon) and the oxygen in the air. The main output is water and carbon dioxide. The stuff you see coming out of “smokestacks” is mostly water vapor. (Same is true of the white stuff coming out of your car’s tailpipe when you first start up on a cool morning.)

There was a sly shift from “global warming” to “climate change.” Of course, there will be climate change. There always has been and always will be. There are ocean fish fossils in Nevada, and there has been running water on Mars.

If you build your house on a river flood plain, don’t be surprised if it eventually gets flooded. Beautiful hotels on the beach in Miami will eventually have water lapping at their front door, regardless of whether we drive electric cars or not.

Of course climate change is real. But let’s be honest about it and make compensating changes — just as has always been the pattern for millions of years.