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PUNCTUATIONS
BY JOHN L. PETERSEN

 Note: This article is reproduced here by permission of the author, and was originally published in The Arlington Institute FUTUREdition Vo. 12, Number 4.

(ARLINGTON INSTITUTE) --For a number of years, now, I’ve been suggesting in public that the future of the planet’s climate may have much more ice than fire. There have always been – for me at least – some questions around the theories related to the forecasts of long-term global warming, and especially the notion that humans were a major causal factor in the influencing the whole of the planet’s climactic system.

Some sources were suggesting to me that the future was one of rapid cooling . . . and that we should be getting ready for that, rather than a period of constantly increasing temperatures. I’d seen several attempts to argue against the IPCC proposals that are the mainstream perspective, but none that were overly comprehensive and compelling. That has now changed.

Recently a friend sent me a copy of a presentation that Burt Rutan made at the big airplane convention that is held in Oshkosh, Wisconsin each year. Burt, the foremost aircraft designer of this era and an extraordinarily creative and out-of-the-box thinker, has put together a very persuasive presentation that shows that real science doesn’t support the currently popular global warming theories.

When I commented to him about his presentation Burt pointed me to a film, The Great Global Warming Swindle, which further convinced me that in terms of the climate, at least, we should seriously be thinking about something other than trying to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Let me recommend that you visit this site where you can find both Burt’s presentation and a link to the film.

Having said this, I think it’s important to also say that there are a number of very good reasons to move on from using so-called fossil-based fuels. If you’ve ever choked your way across the Los Angeles basin during one of their bad smog days, or witnessed the effects of acid rain, tried unsuccessfully to see just a half-block away through the extraordinarily polluted air of Xian, or considered the devastating health costs associated with the major fuels we now use, then there’s no question that we need to find a better way to do some of these things.

We’re full into the beginning of the most extraordinary explosion in science and technology that humanity has ever seen. There are breakthroughs all over the place – especially in the energy sector. I’m aware, for example, of a number of new biomass-based startups that have extraordinary potential for providing clean, renewable alternatives to oil and coal. One tree that I examined grows 65 feet in three years . . . and grows again just that rapidly after you cut it down, and cleans up the soil in the process. So there are alternatives.

And keep in mind, the aliens don’t have gas tanks. There’s surely a next generation of energy and propulsion that we can tap into that will allow us to do extraordinary things that only science fiction writers have thought of without technology that has a smoke stack or tail pipe.

Please note concerning the following document: John L. Petersen informs us that he was never "a retired US Army Col." nor "assigned to USAINSCOM at Fort Meade, MD in the early 1980s." It is possible this refers to Col. John B. Alexander, the well known nonlethal weapons expert.