A Cry for Help

I understand that not everyone has a background in science, and that even those who do are not necessarily versed in all fields of inquiry. But surely a person can recognize when they don't know what they are talking about. Nicholas Ratti Jr. of Bristol is not such a person.

Harold Ward's Feb. 19 letter ("Global warming and wind turbines") implies that wind turbines do not contribute to global warming. That is false, and directly contradicts the laws of science.

Schoolbooks teach that objects moving through the air generate friction and thus heat, which is not insignificant. It is why meteors and space capsules glow white-hot when flying through the air. Schoolchildren do an experiment in which a paddle wheel is spun inside a closed container and the inside temperature is seen to rise. Wind-turbine blade tines approach the speed of sound, due to their huge diameter. The list of examples goes on and on.

So wind turbines do, in fact, contribute to global warning. It may be tempting to argue that the amount of warming from one turbine is insignificant. But that would be true only because the amount of electricity contributed by one turbine is likewise insignificant — making the argument an exercise in silliness.

Ward's letter is yet another example of world-saving promises being defended with arguments that violate the most basic principles of science.

Maybe this isn't widely known, but the phenemenon of "global warming" isn't caused by the heat we create from friction, burning coal, running our cars for 5 minutes in the morning when it's cold outside or the Cranston school department opening their windows in the winter. On any given day the sun pumps more energy into the planet than we could possibly generate. Meanwhile, on the dark side of the globe, tremendous amounts of that heat energy from the sun radiates out into deep space.

The issue we face now is one of increased concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, specifically carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide absorbs the sun's heat and keeps it from radiating out of the earth's atmosphere, like a greenhouse traps warmth and keeps it from dissapating into the outside world. By retaining this heat (energy), polar ice melts (on average), oceans rise, and worldwide weather patterns shift in unexpected ways, causing climate change that we may or may not be able to adapt to. In fact, usually when I see someone use the term "global climate change" as opposed to "global warming" I take it as a hint that what they have to say is credible.

Wind turbines, generating electricity from wind energy, creates no carbon dioxide as a byproduct. The combustion of any fossil fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) does create carbon dioxide (a basic principle of science, if you will). The cause of global warming is not the heat we create, but the greenhouse gas byproducts of generating our power.

Hopefully now it's clear why Mr. Ratti is woefully uninformed (or worse, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). You might find problems with wind energy for any number of reasons*, but "it causes global warming" is not one of them.

* for instance, your multi-million dollar ocean view might have an unwelcome addition, which is funny because that ocean front property will be the first to go as sea levels rise.

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