To the editor:
Re the [WWF June 06] column by Philip Conkling: I heard Matthew Simmons speak in Cambridge, MA recently while peddling his book on the future of oil…
Mr. Simmons treated G.W. Bush’s remarks on America’s addiction to oil as if it were some sort of profound revelation when in fact every American but this slow thinking president would have recognized this reality years ago…
Mr. Simmons then advised the audience that there “is no one way to measure carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere.” He told us that the Europeans and Americans calculate these things differently and come up with divergent answers. “Like comparing apples to oranges” (So we can dismiss global climate changes since we have no valid science to back it up.)
Could be he is not aware that we all use the same Periodic Table of the Elements and use the same chemical equations? For example, the combustion of natural gas: CH4 O2 — there isn’t much wiggle room here. We get CO2, we get water vapor. A Bush Administration insider, he betrays the conservative disdain for science that has stymied meaningful solution to our energy difficulties. After his talk in Cambridge, he told us he was off to the Pentagon to lecture “the top brass” on energy issues.
Wonderful.
Larry Davey
Somerville, MA and Damariscotta, ME