Letters to the Editor

It's important to know about the past

To the Editor:

Over the centuries, mankind has experienced tremendous rainfalls and massive floods, monster hurricanes and typhoons, destructive tornadoes, parched-earth droughts, strong gales, flash floods, great snowfalls and killer blizzards, lightning storms sent down from the heavens, blind dense fogs, freezing rain, sleet, great hail, and bone-chilling cold and even an occasional mudstorm or two and in-between, periods of warm sunshine and tranquility.

And we are still here. We are perhaps a little battered and bruised from the wear. But there is nothing new in the weather to fear because we have been there before. We have learned to cope. We have developed knowledge, skills and tools to reduce the effects of weather extremes.

Today, every time a heat wave or a great flood occurs (such as those in Russia and Pakistan this year), voices arise claiming this is more proof of man-made global warming. I wonder to myself if these voices are intentionally ignorant of historical weather extremes or just dishonest.

Early meteorologist and historians have documented weather for many centuries. Recently, I have compiled several of these accounts into "A Chronological Listing of Early Weather Events" and published this document on the Impact website at www.breadandbutterscience.com/weather.pdf This chronology covers the years 0 to 1900 A.D. (When downloading the file, please be a little patient. This is a master resource and the 6.5 MB file may take a few minutes to access.)

Why is a chronological listing of weather events of value? If one wishes to peer into the future, then a firm grasp of the past events is a key to that gateway. This is intrinsically true for the scientific underpinnings of weather and climate.

James A. Marusek

Bloomfield

Thank you

for all your help

To the Editor:

I would like to thank the Richland Fire Department for putting out the fire at my garage on Sept. 8, 2010.

I would also like to thank the Greene County Sheriff's Department for their help in the shooting at my house on Aug. 22, 2010 and when someone got into my garage on Aug. 29, 2010 and loosened the front wheel on my 86 Harley Davidson.

Again, I would like to thank Chief Terry Jackson and his crew at the Richland Fire Department and the Greene County Sheriff's office. Good job guys.

James D. Dove

Bloomfield