To Whom It May Concern:

I am joining thousands of other Americans in asking you to please not destroy our economy and standard of living by enacting yet more regulations because of so-called “climate change”. The climate has always changed, since the beginning of our planet. Gases such as CO2 and methane are naturally occurring and Earth would be devoid of life without them. These gases are a very small part of our atmosphere:

Nitrogen – 78.084%
Oxygen – 20.95%
Argon – 0.934%
Carbon Dioxide – 0.036%
Neon – 0.0018%
Helium – 0.0005%
Methane – 0.00017%
Hydrogen – 0.00005%
Nitrous Oxide – 0.00003%
Ozone – 0.000004%

Plus 1-4% water vapor.

Since the release of Al Gore’s very inaccurate “documentary”, it’s been proven via historical data that the increase in CO2 FOLLOWS an increase in temperature. The temperature WAS increasing because of heightened sun activity and cosmic radiation. However, this increase peaked in 1998 and the planet has since been cooling, mostly because the sun is entering a quiet period. Are you as ’scientists’ saying that humans can compete with the sun for affecting Earth’s climate?

And what is the result of a bit more CO2 in the atmosphere? an increase in plant growth, a lesson most of us learned in kindergarten. It’s part of the circle of life. Humans, other mammals, and decaying plant life expel CO2 while living plants use it for the photosynthesis process. Without CO2, no life is possible on Earth.

Now, since I, a non-scientist can easily understand these facts, I expect my government to also understand these facts. As well as basic economic facts: if you increase regulation on industry and our everyday activity, you depress our economic growth and decrease our standard of living. Our technical innovation in this country is responsible for saving millions of lives by allowing us to cool and heat our homes, grow enough food for ourselves and a large portion of the rest of the world, invent wonderful life-saving medical treatments, etc. Also by over-regulating these activities, you decrease our ability to compete with other growing countries like China and India that have no such barriers to growth.

Just one volcano or a couple of large forest fires will overwhelm any doubtful miniscule gains from over-regulation. You can’t compete with Mother Nature. I remember the affects of Mount Pinatubo and Mount St. Helens and their impact on climate around the world. No human society can equal that impact. Perhaps your ’scientists’ should read other government agency reports on the planet’s affect on climate like this one from the USGS: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-262/of97-262.html. Or this one from the AGU: http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/self00/node3.html. “The Pinatubo climate forcing was stronger than the opposing, warming effects of either the El Niño event or anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the period 1991-1993. “. This ONE volcano not only cooled the planet significantly, but also dramatically reduced the ozone layer, among other effects. Multiply this by an average 50-70 eruptions per year.

I like clean air and water as much as anyone, but these proposed regulations go too far, will only harm our country and will not significantly improve the quality of our air.