This post is a fact sheet for climate change. In each recent debate, Mike Pence and Donald Trump showed they either don’t or refuse to understand some very simple science of climate change. If they did, they could have helped the American people understand America’s air quality, and how global warming is effecting fires, rain, flooding, storms and drought. For example, I’ve worked with middle and high school students who know more about climate change, global warming, and air pollution than they gave demonstrated.

From 1989 to 2002, thousands of secondary students investigated environmental problems facing the earth. Students monitored and analyzed important physical, geological, chemical and biological aspects of their environments. They could explain the difference between air pollutants and greenhouse gases. They knew the science. Mr. Pence, and Mr. Trump, I’d like to help you understand the science. Are you up to it?

Def. doublet: A pair of two similar or equal things; couple.

Dear Mike and Donald: This post is a kind of a climate science fact sheet especially designed you, and Andrew Wheeler, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, In short, you’ll find information about airquality, the greenhouse effect, and the GTP Effect.

Air Quality

I’ve noticed whenever you are are asked about climate change, you instead talk about clean air and water. That’s important. However, I think its your way of gaslighting the American people about climate change. You need to change that. Knowing the science might help.

In this section, I’ve prepared some charts that should help you see what are the air pollutants, how they are trending, and how the quality of the air is measured. In particular, I suggest you be very specific when you talk about climate and weather, and show you know the difference between air quality and how the greenhouse effect causes global warming.

You might want to check this page on one of Federal Government sites to find out how the Clean Air Act has helped us address air pollution. It all started in 1970, thanks to people such as Rachel Carson, and other environment activists.

Air Pollutants

So, we start with the idea that air pollutants are both gases and particles. The burning of coal produces more pollution than other sources. Gas burning cars and trucks have created higher air pollution levels, not only in the cities, but because pollutants can travel hundreds of miles in the air, rural areas are becoming polluted.

Here are the six pollutants that the EPA is responsible for monitoring. One thing that I know is that ever since you took office you have been chipping away at the regulations that ensure that the government is keeping our air clean. You need to change this, but it might be too late for you.

• Carbon monoxide
• Ozone
• Particules
• Lead
• Nitrogen dioxide
• Sulfur dioxide

Standards of Air Quality

You can go to an EPA page of National Ambient Air Quality Standards. These are air pollutant listed above in chart form explaining what are the air quality standards.

You can also find data on the EPA site that shows how the EPA’s regulations have helped improve the quality of air by reducing the causes of air pollutants. Making more fuel efficient cars is a way to reduce air pollution.

For example, ground level ozone is a gas made of three oxygen atoms (O3). Ozone levels in many major American cities, and nearby suburban and rural area reach harmful levels, especially when temperatures begin to rise in the summer. Unfortunately, the temperature of U.S. cities is on the rise, and this will only contribute to high ozone levels. Ground level, or bad ozone, can cause a variety of health problems for people of all ages, especially those that suffer from asthma or spend a lot of time outside, at work, or playing in a school playground.

The Greenhouse Effect

The boys in the White House think that climate change is a hoax. Many republicans think it’s a hoax. They will tell you that the science isn’t settled on climate change and global warming. As pointed out on 60 Minutes recently, the climate crisis is a scientific reality. California’s wild fires are being driven by climate change. Its dryer, hotter and windier in the West than it has been many years. These conditions are directly related to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Temperature: It was hot as Hades this summer.

The earth is getting hotter. This decade has been the hottest on record. Whenever I hear you talk about forest fires, you make the bold assessment that the forest floor needs to be cleaned & raked. You need to know that the scale of forests makes this impossible. Have hiked recently in the mountains of California, Oregon or Washington? Kip Ault, Professor Emeritus, Lewis & Clark, and a fellow science educator cast light on your dilemma in a recent email. He said that in a study of forest management, the scale of the forests that are drying in California is well beyond the scope of what raking leaves can do to make forests safer.

Dr. Ault recommended that I look at the nature of soil moisture in the coming decades. Researchers Cook, Kip, Smerdon report that climate change is expected to increase drought severity in the coming decades. The droughts will be worse and exceed even the driest centuries of the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Still, you hang on to the idea that raking the driest forests in decades will prevent forest fires. The forests in California and other western states are suffering from severe drought. The forest are dry. The floor of the forest has a massive floor of kindle material that will ignite with a slightest spark. You can’t rake all this up. It has been burning a record levels this year.

The Gases

So, what do greenhouse gases do? Greenhouse gases trap heat from the atmosphere. These gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated (such as those from refrigerators) gases. Greenhouse gases remain gases in the atmosphere. They are non-condensable gases. They don’t condense, like water vapor. Since the industrial revolution, these gases have increased due to human activity.

You might want to include this in your discussions about the science of climate change. Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. You know that temperature limits the amount of water vapor in the air. You both work in a city that gets very humid in the summer. Sticky. If the air contains the maximum amount of water vapor, and the air cools, then the water vapor will condense to form clouds. What is interesting here is if we increase the the non-condensable greenhouse gases (CO2, etc), then the temperature of the atmosphere will increase. If the temperature of the atmosphere increases, then the amount of water vapor in the air will increase. This could increase the temperature of the atmosphere.

Take a look at the graph in Figure 1. It plots the yearly temperatures from 1880. It’s increasing, isn’t it. If things continue as they are now, the slope of the line will continue upwards. It will get hotter in the decades beyond our life spans.

Global Warming

The Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA ruled that the EPA must consider global warming and greenhouse gases in their measurement of air quality. Climate change and global warming are on the books. You need to bring yourselves up-to-date. Your position with the American public would be enhanced if you would accept the fact that the climate is changing and the earth is getting hotter. Most Americans think the Federal government should do more to address the problem of climate change. And, this includes Republicans as well as Democrats. It’s really not a partisan issue.

The gas that is the main cause of global warming is carbon dioxide. Since the industrial revolution began, the amount of carbon dioxide has increased. You should know that CO2 has increased principally through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), solid waste, tress (think the wildfires). You also know that CO2 is removed from the air when it is absorbed by plants.

Here are two graphs that you might find useful. The first shows indirect measurements inferred from ice cores (as far back as 800 AD, as well as direct measurements in more recent time. The second graph shows the monthly measurements of CO2 from the Mauna Loa Observatory. In each graph, the CO2 level has gone up, and is now more than 414 part per million (ppm).

Effects

Greenhouse gases are also responsible for warming oceans, shrinking ice sheets, glacial retreat, decreased snow cover, sea level rise, declining arctic sea ice, extreme events (heat, cold, rain), and ocean acidification.

You might keep a collection of photos showing some of these effects. Here are a few you can copy.

The GTP Effect

The GTP Effect happens when teens are trusted and listened to about their ideas of the natural environment. The Global Thinking Project Effect emerged from a hands-across the globe environmental science Internet-based program from the early 1990s- 2002. The GTP Effect encouraged collaboration among students from different nations. Here is the story of the GTP effect.

The Global Thinking Project taught students to think globally, and act locally. Students in the project monitored ground level ozone in their neighborhood and shared and discussed their findings with their classroom peers. They also posted their data on the GTP Website for other students to use in their analysis of ground-level ozone. Students also investigated the quality of water in a local stream, studied how green was their classroom, solid waste, and soil.

You can learn about clean air, clean water, and global warming from students who participated in the GTP. In one of our studies, we concluded that the GTP Effect or global thinking is necessary for the assumption of planetary stewardship.

It is unfortunate, Mr. Pence and Trump that you don’t see any value in listening to others in the medical or the scientific professions. You should listen to them, and involve them in all of decisions. You can also reach out to middle and high school science teachers who understand the climate crisis that students in their classrooms face.

Conclusion

This fact sheet for climate change was written to advance Mike Pence and Donald Trump’s knowledge of climate change, tongue in cheek. Each of these men have rejected scientific and medical research and researchers and doctors. During this doublet’s watch, science and medical denial have flourished. Two major journals of medicine and science have urged people to vote these two out of office. They made this decision because of failed handling of the coronavirus pandemic. They have consistently refused to accept the science of climate change and global warming. Scientific American urge people to vote to end attacks on science. Climate change and the coronavirus are existential threats.

This blog post was inspired by the most recent presidential debate. Pence’s denial of climate change affecting the fires in California is dangerous. These two men have rejected human knowledge-based science and medicine. This kind of thinking (or lack of) cannot form the center of the American government.