I am rather appalled when I read nonsense such as that written on June 18 by Beth Nagusky, Maine office director of Environment Northeast.

Her position should provide her the opportunity to understand that climate change and weather occurs in “natural cycles.” Her remarks suggesting recent floods across the Mississippi River Basin were being caused “in a large part by human activity” are very unnerving and display a sense of naivety by state and federal officials.

Unfortunately, many citizens of the United States and even Europe only hear political views conceived from junk science driven by slanted government-funded research.

Between the years 1995 to at least 2008, universities and colleges could only receive government grant money to study possible connections between human activity and climate change. No grants were available for studies of natural cycles, thus censoring this subject.

An attempt to tie the Mississippi River basin flood and the Texas drought to climate change caused by human activity is, to put it bluntly, ill-informed. During the past 100 years, the five greatest historical floods have occurred on fairly regular 19- to 24-year natural cycles.

Based on natural cycles that I use for climate and weather forecasting, I began telling my clients and potential clients three years ago that another historical flood would occur in the year 2011. Droughts and hurricanes are likewise very cyclical, and always have been.

Then we come to climate change. Global warming occurs like clockwork every 200 to 230 years, with five warming episodes during the past 1,000 years, and during the past 500,000 years there have been 22,000 global warming events.

And lastly we have carbon dioxide, which is a very cyclical byproduct of mega global warming cycles that occur every 100,000 years.

You guessed it, the Earth is right at the peak of the 100,000-year cycle, and this is why we have high carbon dioxide levels.

David Dilley

CEO, Global Weather Oscillations Inc.

Hiram 

Protest on offshore oil set Saturday in Portland 

As a lifelong resident of Maine and college student studying marine biology, the ocean has always been important to me. With the risks of offshore oil drilling still fresh in our minds, it’s frightening that there’s currently an effort under way to expand it.

Why would anyone support this? It would have no effect on gas prices, nor would it significantly decrease our dependence on foreign oil. According to the Department of Energy, expanding offshore drilling would have no effect on gas prices by 2020 and only about 3 cents a gallon by 2030.

Maine’s economy relies on the health of our oceans. Our fishing and tourism industries depend on them. A spill off our coast would be devastating.

Furthermore, expanding drilling would have little economic benefit. Studies have shown that investment in renewable energy produces three times the number of jobs as the same investment in the fossil fuel industry.

With great risks and little benefit, it’s irresponsible to support offshore drilling. Especially when an alternative like offshore wind energy is a much more lucrative opportunity. Offshore wind development could bring billions of dollars of investment to the state, create thousands of jobs and help us become energy independent.

Unfortunately, thanks to entrenched fossil fuel lobbyists in the District of Columbia, there are several bills in Congress that would expand offshore drilling.

The only way we can stand up to these well-financed special interests is through collective effort.

Only when we make our voices heard together do we stand a chance. That’s why I’m participating in the upcoming “Hands Across the Sand” event at the East End Beach in Portland on June 25 at 11:30 a.m.

We’ll be joining thousands on beaches around the world to form a human chain to protect our coasts, say “no” to offshore oil drilling and “yes” to clean energy.

Brittany Beaulieu

South Portland 

Offshore drilling for oil and gas off Maine’s coastline is risky. That’s why I’m getting involved by attending the “Hands Across the Sand’ event at the East End Beach in Portland on June 25. If you care about offshore drilling, you should join me.

Our increased appetite for oil and gas is costing us and our environment. Some in Congress hope that we’ll ignore new legislation promoting drilling off the East Coast, but I’m worried.

Many Gulf Coast residents are still suffering from the effects of last year’s oil spill. Jobs have been lost, fishing, recreation and tourism industries are still struggling, and an environmental crisis continues to unfold.

Maine’s leaders should create incentives for clean energy, such as offshore wind, rather than expose our coastal industries and ecosystems to extreme risk.

By volunteering to help groups like Oceana and attending events like “Hands Across the Sand,” we can keep offshore drilling from destroying our beaches.

Melissa Locklar

Poland 

Alternative energy not backed by Maine governor or his party 

The city of Portland recently focused on Alternative Energy Week, and during it I biked past the prototype for TidGen, a cool new dual-turbine that creates energy directly from tidal waters.

Yet Gov. LePage thinks the state shouldn’t invest more money in this type of endeavor.

So how exactly does this self-described “pro-business” governor define “business”? Apparently it is simply the same old corporate, profiteering type of business that the Republicans are famous for.

Worse, the tea party is supposed to be different. But LePage’s anti-intellectual approach to just about everything seems to satisfy simplistic passions but obscure that fact that he repeatedly seems to be just a bagboy for the corporate billionaires working to blind the blue-collar voters to this simple fact.

I guess because LePage’s crew can’t patent tidal waters or solar energy or wind energy, then it is somehow easier to deny these ideas even exist or that they could help extract us from the foreign-owned energy sources (which includes CMP, by the way).

Drew Masterman

Portland