It is often said the Democrat Party likes to tax anything that moves. The present Congress is preparing to add to that, "or releases carbon dioxide," which includes every living creature on Earth, by way of the proposed "Cap and Trade" tax legislation being prepared to deal with the scientifically unproven "global warming" from carbon dioxide greenhouse gas.

They seem to have accepted a "consensus" of members of an "international" panel (IPCC) composed mostly of politicos (only 20 percent had any scientific background) along with speculation based largely on statistically invalid and erroneous data and apparently reinforced by a Hollywood movie (An Inconvenient Truth), which was adjudged as "misleading" and "erroneous" by a British court. They appear to refuse to believe, or even read, a petition presented to them that was signed by more than 30,000 independent, qualified, and credentialed scientists, engineers, chemists, physicists, meteorologists, educators, researchers, climatologists, medical doctors, statisticians, oceanographers, geologists, economists and historians. The petition reads as follows:

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997 and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth." — Petition Project, La Jolla, California.

The petition is based on many scientific facts, only one of which is that carbon dioxide is only 5 percent of global warming greenhouse gases (water is 90 percent) and fossil-fuel combustion is responsible for only one-tenth of that 5 percent. Another is that without carbon dioxide in our atmosphere and oceans, there would be no vegetation, and hence, probably no life at all on Earth.

People should communicate with their congresspersons and tell them to stop playing pseudoscientific political scare games with our economy — and to vote "No" on "Cap and Trade" and the Kyoto Accord.

Ken Johnson lives in Sandia Park.