Letters for April 18, 2019

No debate here

Re “Game day” (cover story, April 4):

I think it’s pretty sad that your article [subtitled] “Where do Reno’s team loyalties lie?” makes no mention of the world’s and Northern Nevada’s game, soccer. Not only are there more kids playing soccer than any other sport in Northern Nevada, Reno is home to one professional and one semi-professional team.

Reno 1868 FC plays in the second tier of soccer, the USL Championship. It is San Jose Earthquakes’ affiliate and plays at Greater Nevada Field, averaging over 5,000 people every home game.

The Nevada Coyotes play in the United Premier Soccer League, fourth tier, and play home games at Damonte Ranch High School.

In the first two seasons, 1868 has made the playoffs both years and has a rabid fan base with three independent supporter groups who represent all ages, ethnicities and members of the local community.

The Coyotes has won every trophy in its league and have recruited players from such far flung places as Kazakhstan, Scotland and various African countries.

Perhaps if your journalist actually got out of the sports books and sports bars and did some research, or perhaps, God forbid, got himself to Greater Nevada Field to see 1868, he might understand what makes Northern Nevada’s game so popular. In fact, let’s do this. The Douglas Alley Renegades (one of the supporter groups) will comp him a ticket so he can join us and Los Unikos Del 68 (another one of the groups) at Red’s Broken Bat for the pre-game on April 20th before 1868 take on New Mexico United. We’ll show him what footie and the fans are all about, and then maybe teams that actually play in our Biggest Little City will get some coverage and respect from your newspaper.

Roy Douglas

Reno

Climate change

I am not a pro-AGW [anthropogenic global warming] zealot. I’m not a global warming denier either. I know the science because I read science journals, I do not get my doctored scientific information from the biased and thoroughly ignorant media, left or right. In addition, some of my closest intellectual pals are climate scientists. None of us is in denial that CO2 is a valid “greenhouse gas,” and none of us is in denial that the current ppm of atmospheric CO2 is relatively higher than the long-term norm. But because we know the paleo records, we know that global warming and cooling is a profoundly complex thing involving a multiplicity of interacting factors.

When the ice cores taken from Antarctica showed that over the past 400,000+ years each cyclical increase in global temperatures was followed—not preceded—by increases in atmospheric CO2 by upwards of 1,000-year lag times, the pro-AGW zealots had to scramble to find a way to spin this INCONVENIENT TRUTH to fit their anti-CO2 dogma. So, what they came up with is that each cyclical increase in global temperatures was due to changes in Earth’s spatial relationship to the Sun and the Sun’s cyclical solar activity. Great, no problem with that argument because those of us in-the-know know that Earth’s spatial relationship to the Sun and solar activity are indeed major factors in our planet’s warming-and-cooling dynamics. However, where this convenient spin by the pro-AGW zealots have placed them in checkmate is that out of the other corner of their mouths they claim that the current warming trend is not related to Earth’s spatial relationship to the Sun and solar activity.

Oops, you can’t have it both ways!

My Oxford climate scientist buddy, Peter Taylor, has calculated that about 18 percent of the 1.34 degrees F in global temperature rise over the past 100 years is due to anthropogenic CO2. Fair enough, we know that CO2 plays an important role in the regulation of Earth’s atmospheric temperatures. But this means that the other 82 percent is due to other factors unrelated to human activities. An intelligent and honest person has to ask how it is that the pro-AGW zealots can callously dismiss the role of the other factors when those other factors account for roughly 4/5 of the current warming trend.

So, playing loosely with how the math actually sorts out, if CO2 accounts for roughly 18 percent of the current warming trend of 1.34 degrees F over the past 100 years, that means that CO2 is responsible for only 0.24 degrees F.

Run for the hills, Maude, the end is near!

Jeff Middlebrook

Truckee