Editor:

Newspapers all over the U.S. are reporting now that journalists in Iran are being detained. I think that sometimes it is a good idea to detain journalists. For example, I think the Associated Press writer who wrote the June 28 front-page article saying "the coal industry's biggest problem (is) the carbon dioxide emitted by coal-burning plants" should be detained. Nothing he said could be further from the truth. Everyone knows the biggest problem is air pollution. From a scientific point of view, the AP suggestion that carbon dioxide is the main cause of air pollution is absurd. Air pollution is not caused by carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is invisible.

. Many, perhaps most, scientists have concluded the premise that carbon dioxide causes global warming as well as climate change, changes in weather, air pollution, and the demise of polar bears - doesn't make any sense. Overall, we think the "single molecule-carbon dioxide theory" of causing all the world's ills is implausible, without scientific merit, and will eventually collapse like a house of cards. We don't have confidence in any politician who supports cap and trade legislation because, like global warming and climate change, we think the legislation is based on phony science, is not comprehensible, is incredibly unproductive, and will do nothing to solve the real problem of air pollution.

Wyoming scientists are thinking about taking two black boxes (having vent holes in the top) to the October energy conference in Jackson. One will contain a block of dry ice (carbon dioxide) and the other will contain only air. The invited governors and officials from Washington will be asked to guess which box is putting out the most air pollution, the box emitting invisible carbon dioxide or the box containing invisible air. If they guess the wrong black box, they also will be detained until after the cap and trade vote in the Senate, and then, after a battery of visual and mental tests, must return their travel money to the state of Wyoming, fly home on their private jet, and hopefully, stay there.

See you at the polls, the Jackson energy conference in October, and, if cap and trade does pass the Senate, in a court of law. Powder River, let 'er buck.

JOHN McKAY, Laramie