Temperatures dropping in state’s climate change

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• Retired WWU professor, a global warming skeptic, meets with Wash. senators

  Retired WWU professor, a global warming skeptic, meets with Wash. senators

  A new Republican-dominated majority in the state Senate dedicated a rare block of time Tuesday to hear the views of a global warming skeptic who argued that federal scientists have been manipulating climate data to inflate temperatures.

  The views of Don Easterbrook, a professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University, are considered outside of mainstream science.

  A 2010 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 97 percent of the most cited and published climate scientists said climate change was a man-made problem.

• Industrial use of fossil fuel increasing pace of climate change

  Industrial use of fossil fuel increasing pace of climate change

  As a scientist who has studied global climate change for more than 25 years and published many articles and a book on the subject ("Climate Change: Causes, Effects, and Solutions," 2003), I must take issue with the points made by Don Easterbrook published in "Whatcom View" April 14. The article typifies the use of selective half-truths chosen to support a pre-conceived idea, i.e. that humans are not having significant effects on the Earth's climate. For example, yes it is true that there have been multiple periods of warning over the past 10,000 to 15,000 years (since the last ice age). And, yes, at times it was warmer than the present. Yes, this happened before the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuel.

  What the author fails to explain (but surely knows) is that these warming periods are largely the natural result of the Milankovich Cycle, i.e. changes in the orbital configuration and distance between the Earth and sun that determines how much solar energy and consequent

• Climate-change activists to rally as lawmakers start session Monday

  Climate-change activists to rally as lawmakers start session Monday

  Activists with the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other groups plan a climate-change rally from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday, coinciding with the start of a 105-day legislative session. The goal is to draw attention to rising global temperatures that have been tied to human activities such as burning coal for power.

  The event also coincides with severe high tides on Puget Sound, which offer a glimpse early in the week of future sea level effects as the effect of global warming continue.

• Easterbrook disputes WWU faculty global warming opinions

  Easterbrook disputes WWU faculty global warming opinions

  "WWU faculty find overwhelming scientific evidence to support global warming." Of course there is overwhelming evidence of global warming! Everyone agrees! But that doesn't prove it was caused by carbon dioxide! The authors fail to understand:

  Of the two periods of global warming this century, the first, and warmest, occurred before rise in carbon dioxide;

  Twenty periods of global warming occurred over the past five centuries;

• Tacoma glaciologist discusses local efforts to monitor climate change

  Tacoma glaciologist discusses local efforts to monitor climate change

  Traffic jams and fender-benders didn’t plague Matt Bachmann’s commute last week. Along with two associates, he took the ultimate commuter HOT lane — via helicopter — and set up shop nearly 7,000 feet up the frozen flanks of the South Cascade Glacier in the North Cascades east of Darrington.