Minnesota lost 14 percent of its moose population last year and it may not have moose for much longer because of disease, parasites and a warming climate, according to Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wildlife researcher Mark Lenarz (TNT, 2-23).

The suggestion that a warming climate is responsible for the recent decline in and potential elimination of the Minnesota moose population is highly questionable because the NOAA National Climatic Data Center reports that Minnesota’s annual temperatures have actually been trending downward at a rate of 1.75 degrees F per decade during the 14 years since 1998 and that Minnesota’s …

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Re: “As world warms, delegates again try talking” (TNT, 11-21).

The last time the world warmed was 120,000 years ago and that warming was 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the article about the United Nations climate conference in Cancun. The author has apparently not read about the Holocene Maximum, the global climatic period from about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago that was 2 degrees Fahrenheit or more warmer than present-day temperatures.

The warmer temperatures of the Holocene Maximum were responsible for replacing forests with prairies on many gravelly and droughty glacial outwash deposits in the South Sound Region. These …

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Re: “Green energy groups protest Centralia TransAlta coal plant” (www.thenewstribune.com, 9-29).

The article about the campaign to shut down the Centralia coal-fired power plant stated that climate change models predict a drier Pacific Northwest that could lead to more wildfires.

These climate change models that are predicting a drier Northwest with more wildfires, however, contrast with the National Climatic Data Center data indicating that the Northwest summer wildfire season precipitation has actually trended upward by 1.15 inches, a 44 percent summer precipitation increase, over the last 10 years.

The National Climatic Data Center data also indicates that Northwest summer wildfire …

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Re: “RAT needed to counter global slowing” (letter, 5-2).

The writer is correct in pointing out the slowing of Earth’s rotation by two milliseconds since 1820. This is clearly related to the growth of industrialization over that same period.

The solution is obvious. A line of jet engines set on towers between Chicago and New Orleans could be positioned to speed earth’s eastern rotation to its proper rate. (A greener solution might be giant fans powered by windmills.) A similar line at the same latitude in Argentina would be needed to avoid upsetting (or perhaps to correct?) the natural wobble …

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