Letter: Global warming not caused just by humans

Dear Editor:

This is in response to folks like the letter writer from Washington who is worried about global warming.

This is not going to happen in our lifetime, but it will occur. The human race gets blamed (in the media and elsewhere) for causing or contributing to global warming. In actuality, that contribution amounts to about 10-12 percent of the cause.

All over the world there are legends passed down about years of darkening skies, very cold periods, and flooding caused by warm periods (over short timeframes), and Noah’s Ark type of salvation for the human race – all occurring from about 17,000 to 6000 B.C.

These things didn’t happen overnight … more like hundreds to thousands of years. The last major ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. From 11,000 to 7,000 years ago, the climate in the Pacific Northwest warmed about 3 degrees. The climate is now warming as it did during the medieval period.

During the past 30 years the global temperature has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit so we are in a warming trend. About 40 percent of that is due to solar radiation, but other factors are involved, too, such as El Nino and La Nina, the Global Conveyer Belt (circulation of ocean currents), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (a 20- to 25-year cycle of ocean heating and cooling), and cosmic radiation.

The sky is not falling yet, Al Gore notwithstanding.

Glenn Park, Riverside, Calif.