DeSmog
Background
Hugh W. Ellsaesser, born in 1920, is a meteorologist by training and retired “guest scientist” at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.[1]
Ellsaesser previously served for twenty-one years as a weather officer in the US Air Force. He is also CEO of HWE Atmospheric Consultant. [1]
“I am one of the strong supporters of the proposition that the available records indicate climate warming over the past century or so. It’s just that I don’t believe the observed warming is due to an increase in greenhouse gases.” [2]
Key Quotes
January 29, 1998
The following is from the conclusion a 1998 letter from Hugh W. Ellsaesser to the publisher of
Email Address
The pandemic lockdowns have reduced CO2 emissions and given us more room to walk, bike, and for those of us able to go outdoors breathe. For speed freaks, though, this morbidly idyllic state of affairs immediately presented a different kind of open space. Almost as soon as California issued the first stay-at-home order in the country on March 19, super speeders took to the roads. The Highway Patrol issued 87 percent more citations for triple-digit speeds in the thirty days following the order. The same insanity followed lockdowns across the country. Overall, traffic fatalities jumped 75 percent per mile driven. Somewhat unbelievably to those who have reacted to Covid with panic, anguish, depression, and anger, three new cross-country records known colloquially as Cannonball Runs have been set in quick succession since March. A team of three drivers holds the current record: twenty-five hours and thirty-nine minutes from Manhattan to LA at an average speed of 110 miles