YOUR LETTERS

Carbon sequestration has been debunked

1:39 PM Thursday, July 2, 2009

Letter to the editor

Re “700 protest against carbon dioxide plan,” June 30:

To those of you who have chosen to ridicule Greenville and the 700-plus people protesting the U.S. Department of Energy-financed Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership’s $92.8 million carbon dioxide capture and sequestration contract (to be managed by Battelle Memorial Institute), consider the following:

Carbon sequestration has been debunked, scorned or used as a subject of jest by the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, CNN’s Lou Dobbs, CNBC’s Erin Burnett, the Ohio Sierra Club, Rush Limbaugh, Greenpeace, American Geophysical Union astrophysicist E. Chaisson and the American Water Works Association.

More important, 31,000 scientists from the National Academy of Science have stated, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases is causing or will cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

Judith Bradbury, outreach coordinator for Battelle, was quoted as saying: “I have spoken with (Greenville and Darke County) politicians and community leaders at all levels, only as individuals, confidentially, and with no e-mails or letters.”

Could a discussion of an issue purported to be an “open dialogue” be more clandestine?

Can anyone, including Battelle, explain the meaning of Bradbury’s statement: “This community has not been used to oil and gas exploration. This is a whole new concept for them, so we have to take time to explain the issues that come up”?

Among the people in Greenville whom she refers to with the pejorative comment are engineers, biological scientists and authors of numerous scientific publications.

This is obviously a case where Battelle has the money ($90 million of your tax dollars), and it is going to spend it, regardless.

Charles E. and Rebecca A. Reier

Greenville

Share this article