The National Union of Friendly Americans (NUFA) can sympathize with the recent findings from the Fossil Fuel Support Group Association saying that carbon dioxide (CO2) is “profoundly Earth-friendly” and a very necessary gas within the breathable space of this planet.

NUFA has sympathy, has empathy, for feeble-minded thought of all kinds. Yes, a recent column found in the local unnamed daily paper indicates that a recent study done by Mr. Roger, not Mr. Rogers, found that having carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is better than not having carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Mr. Roger also claimed that recent efforts to curb climate change are really a thinly disguised assault on coal and hydrocarbons, on fossil fuels, on our way of life, mind you.

 to Mr. Roger the government, yes, the government, is basing the effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions on flawed science and the so-called “social costs” of carbon and the estimates of climate change damages within a given year.

(Editor’s note: NUFA has noted in researching the study, paid for Fossil Fuel Support Group Association and the American Coalition of Clean Coal Electricity and Other Ironies, that nowhere does it indicate that in order to release more “profoundly Earth-friendly” carbon into the air you spew more pollution into the air as well. You don’t have one without the other.) 

A note to folks who believe we’ve turned the corner on pollution. We haven’t. There are over 7.3 billion of us on the planet now and we’re consuming more, not less, of the earth’s natural resources. We are emitting more pollution today than at any other point in the history of the planet. Yes, if we hadn’t begun to consider the effects of pollution in the 1960s and 1970s and come up with clean air and clean water legislation we’d be smog bound and putting out fires on lakes and rivers on a daily basis. But the fact remains that 7.3 billion humans are polluting the planet at a greater pace than ever before.

We’ve gotten better at understanding what we emit, how to slow the inevitable increase, but we haven’t slowed the overall amount of gases, particulates, toxins and flying monkeys we throw around in such cavalier fashion. We are killing the planet and ourselves. Only a fool can believe we’re handling our living space with care.  

Can anyone seriously believe that 312 million American consumers aren’t creating more waste than the 148 million Americans that inhabited the country when I was born in 1954? Our population has more than doubled folks. What we buy, burn, eat and turn into energy isn’t in our imaginations. And now with the rest of the world hoping to live at the top of the food chain like we do, boy, oh boy do we have some serious downsizing to consider if we really believe we can sustain life on into the future.

Apparently the latest information released by NASA and NOAA regarding the warming planet simply brings out those people with bad hairpieces and a chip on the climate change shoulder. Of course we’d hear from Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma in response to the findings that 2014 was the warmest year on record.

The venerable skeptic replied to the report by saying that the temperature difference between 2010, the previous warmest year, and 2014 was so insignificant as to prove there was no need for more stringent regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency.

With foot in mouth he went on to say, “Human activity is clearly not the driving force for global warming, and is not leading our planet to the brink of devastation that many alarmists want us to believe.”      

NUFA thinkers, drinkers and atmosphereologists have tipped many a glass of rum and bourbon over this and their simple and humane method for handling such thought is to invite the witless to a Camp Shack retreat complete with personal bartenders and bunk. There will be the complimentary handshake and hearty slap on the back before we take them on the Ride of Mirth and Merriment and then confine them in the Camp Shack air chamber to consider just what it’s like to live in a closed system. There is no magic in the Camp Shack air chamber. Whatever bad air and bad thoughts you produce will not leave.

It doesn’t take long for even the most dim-witted to understand there is only so much good air in the chamber, a closed system very much like Earth’s atmosphere.

Most folks will soon be pounding at the portholes to be released back into the larger air chamber that is Earth’s atmosphere and we’ve found skeptics discover a real change of heart about such matters is the usual result.

NUFA will be sending the invitations real soon to climate change deniers at the Fossil Fuel Support Group Association, the American Coalition of Clean Coal Electricity and Other Ironies and the members of the New Conservative Neanderthal Party (NCNP) of the U.S. Senate.     

Forrest Johnson has been writing for over 20 years and was editor of the Lake County Chronicle in Two Harbors.