Tourism bill a national priority, not pork

To the editor:

I was surprised and disappointed by a recent Review-Journal editorial ("Tourism pork," Sept. 28) attacking legislation I authored in partnership with Rep. Jon Porter. Your claim that this bill is pork is wrong on several counts.

First, the funds for the grant program are already included in the White House budget dedicated to promoting good will abroad; no new taxpayer dollars are called for.

Second, the grants will be awarded through a competitive process that requires matching funds, providing for a responsible public-private partnership.

Finally, this law isn’t intended to prop up the travel industry; its main purpose is to improve our image abroad, a focus the government has ignored for too many years.

This bill is about the person-to-person contact that gives travelers a positive feeling about our country, something movies and television shows fail at.

I would hope the media industry, which so often reports on our wounded international image, would recognize this bill — the Improving Public Diplomacy through International Travel Act — as a first step toward repairing that damage.

Your editorial claimed that Las Vegas has sufficient resources to battle this problem; that’s true. But many other communities don’t, and this must be a national priority.

Rep. Sam Farr

WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE WRITER, A DEMOCRAT REPRESENTS CALIFORNIA’S 17TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT.

Clean power

To the editor:

Sen. Harry Reid seems to think it would be a good idea to rid Nevada of one of America’s most abundant resources; one that generates more than half of our electricity.

Sen. Reid says we don’t need coal at a time when energy demand is increasing, and in Nevada alone, doubling each six to seven years.

Nevada receives more than half of its electricity from American coal. Supporting energy efficiency and the development of renewable resources is important, but that alone cannot reliably and affordably growing electricity demand.

Sen. Reid also fails to mention the health and economic impact of removing coal from Nevada’s energy portfolio.

If just 66 percent of coal-fueled electricity generation were removed from Nevada’s energy mix, research indicates it would cost the state $2.5 billion in lost economic output, $1.1 billion in lost household income and 18,000 lost jobs.

Opponents of coal prefer to talk about coal the way it was, not the way it is today. Sen. Reid skips over the fact that technology makes it possible to use coal to generate electricity and remove 85 to 95 percent of emissions — meaning these plants meet, and in many cases exceed, standards designed to protect public health.

We need to quit talking about "if" we’ll use coal, and instead talk about "how" — and the answer is "cleanly." Let’s talk about accelerating development of technologies that will allow us to use a broad array of domestic fuels, including coal, so Nevadans can enjoy an affordable, secure supply of energy now and in the future.

Joe Lucas

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

THE WRITER IS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF AMERICANS FOR BALANCED ENERGY CHOICES (WWW.BALANCEDENERGY.ORG).

Growth woes

To the editor:

Why is it that the officials who have the means of controlling the population growth of Las Vegas are doing nothing?

We are constantly warned about water shortages and a drought, but new home building continues as if no water problem or drought exists. Who is paying for the "blindness" of the officials sworn to control unrestrained growth?

How many homes are on the market as ‘"resales" and how many new homes, already built, are for sale? How many vacant apartments and rental homes exist? Take a drive around the area and you will see new housing construction, yet plentiful "for sale" and "for rent" signs.

We see Lake Mead shrinking and hear the news reports telling us that water shortages at Lake Mead are reaching a critical point. Are Southern Nevada politicians going to wait until it is too late to do anything but ration water? They are relying on water projects from up-state to solve their problem, but is that a Band-aid or the total solution?

Lee S. Gliddon Jr.

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Warming trend

To the editor:

In Tuesday’s Review-Journal, UNLV professor Stephen M. Rowland takes great issue with a commentary by Walter E. Williams on global warming. Professor Rowland states that during the Cambrian period, carbon dioxide atmospheric levels were 18 times what they are today and that this coincided with a mass extinction of species. He also states that global warming today is due to our greenhouse gas-emitting lifestyle, yet does not explain how the large increase in concentrations that occurred 550 million years ago could have happened when there were no men around.

In fact, during the past 400,000 years there have been four documented episodes of global warming (not counting the current episode) and in every case the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide rose dramatically and did not decline until after the Earth’s temperature declined. These facts lead to the logical conclusion that global warming causes the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, not the other way around.

Note that none of these warming episodes were anthropogenic (man-made).

Further, water vapor in the atmosphere is by far the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect. In fact, without water vapor in the atmosphere the Earth would be uninhabitable (way too cold). The concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere is 10 to 100 times that of carbon dioxide. Both gases have approximately the same absorption "cross sections" for the infra-red radiation that is re-radiated from the Earth’s surface. Therefore, water vapor accounts for at least 95 percent of the overall greenhouse effect.

Moreover, anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere accounts for only about 3 percent of all CO2 (the remainder is from natural sources — such as the ocean).

When all of these numbers are put together, anthropogenic carbon dioxide causes only a little more than 0.1 percent of the Earth’s greenhouse effect. Thus, even a doubling of the CO2 concentration would have a negligible (immeasurable) impact on global warming. It is a fact that all of the "studies" relating anthropogenic carbon dioxide to catastrophic global warming totally ignore the effect of water vapor. These studies also ignore the past history of global warming that could not have been caused by man.

Various authors have offered speculations as to why this situation persists, but that is the subject for another letter.

No one can deny, however, that if the United States signs and abides by the Kyoto protocol our standard of living will drop precipitously. Since China and India have been specifically excluded (even though China now emits as much carbon dioxide as the United States), their economies will boom while the United States stagnates, which brings us full circle to Walter E. Williams’ commentary.

Walter F. Wegst

LAS VEGAS