Tony Vagneur’s column in the July 27 Aspen Times, “Environmentalists blinded by solar panels,” was exceptional in exposing the wide-ranging damage that will occur from the proposed creation of a giant solar energy farm in Woody Creek, and most important of all is his message of our earth’s history: “Our home planet has experienced serious fluctuating climate changes over the years. It’s been warmer, it’s been colder. Even before man entered the picture.”
The Colorado Geological Survey has cataloged a dozen glaciers in our state that were advancing during the “Little Ice Age,” a period from 1300 to 1850 AD. Colorado’s new glaciers began their retreat in 1850 due to global warming. In the 1970s, climate scientists were warning of a cooling that could bring our world to a new ice age.
The climate record over the past 500,000 years shows about five great ice ages, spaced in about 100,000-year intervals, with ice depths of 10,000 feet. Other ice ages of lesser magnitudes are roughly spaced over 10,000 to 40,000 years. The ice that buried Chicago, a mere 11,000 years ago, was nearly 5,000 feet in height. The disappearance of that ice mass is ignored by those who are alarmed with the changes in today’s recent climate.
The Vagneur and Diemoz families left Europe for America circa 1900 settling in of all places, Woody Creek, nestled among mountains that match the mountains they left in the Valle d’Aosta near the French, Italian, Swiss border. Woody Creek is a special place that should not be molested.
Floyd Diemoz
Glenwood Springs