In August 1939, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard sent a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt concerning the possible power of nuclear weapon development. They described the massive destructive power of a few pounds of purified Uranium in terms of one bomb destroying an entire port and the surrounding countryside.  

They incorrectly surmised that transporting such a bomb by air could be impractical. What they were actually describing was profoundly counter-intuitive. One bomb being equivalent to thousands of tons of TNT was viewed by many military experts with incredulity. Nevertheless, the letter was not dismissed or put aside. 

The claim was immediately thoroughly investigated by the Roosevelt Administration. Leading American and international physicists working on nuclear fission were consulted as Einstein and Szilard suggested, and the Administration concluded that a nuclear bomb was indeed feasible, and the destructive capacity would be incredible. 

Luckily, no one trusted their gut about the difficult to imagine power of this bomb. Einstein, obviously a very odd character who liked to talk about other counter-intuitive ideas, like time slowing down at very high speeds, and the bending of three-dimensional space, was taken seriously. 

The obvious concern was that Germany would be well aware of the feasibility of nuclear weapons as well and proceed with their development. Within a short period of time, the Manhattan project was formed. A few months later in February of 1940, the US successfully produced nuclear chain reaction.  

After a tremendously complex and expensive war-time effort a substantial amount of Uranium 238 was obtained and a nuclear device was detonated at the Trinity Site in New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. While the wisdom of using the bomb on Japan in August of 1945 is debatable, the development of nuclear capability during the Second World War is usually not questioned. 

Without Einstein’s letter the attentive Roosevelt Administration might well have pursued the matter based on other communications, but the important issue was that the American scientific community was respected for what it was and still is, a group of dedicated, well meaning, honest individuals, which had developed strict peer reviewed processes for advancing scientific knowledge. 

The unfortunate, eventual reality of this knowledge was the ability to construct nuclear weapons. There was a perceived race with Germany to develop nuclear weapons, which in retrospect may not have been much of a race at all. Germany lost many of their leading Jewish physicists prior to WWII. 

There were many other scientific/political refugees from Germany in the 1930’s. Many escaped to America. Hitler remained somewhat incredulous, trusting his gut. He cut support for the nuclear weapons project in 1942, and the Germans concentrated on the development of a nuclear reactor as an energy source. 

Germany never developed a successful nuclear chain reaction, a necessary first step of the process. The German nuclear reactor design required quantities of “heavy water”. The Allies destroyed a German “heavy water” plant in Norway in 1943. 

In 1896 a Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius, predicted that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide could lead to significant global warming. In the 1960’s measurement of carbon dioxide levels at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, provided clear evidence of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. 

The loss of the Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland ice sheets, the disappearance of mountain glaciers, and the continued increase in average yearly temperature all confirm the existence of global warming. In some parts of the world, India for example, global warming has adversely impacted agricultural production. 

Scientific consensus states that the current global warming trend is due to excessive carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels. The trend is accelerating. It appears that the principal error has been the underestimation of the speed and severity of climate change. 

President Trump has forbidden the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, from using the term “climate change.” Weather and climate officials are expecting significant defunding and perhaps breakup of NOAA, in accordance with Project 2025 proposals. 

Our scientists at NOAA are by and large good Americans, loyal civil servants, knowledgeable, and honest. They are not conspiracists. They are being punished for the sin of seeking the truth. Future generations will likely be harmed.

Robert Rice of Alamosa is a retired physician. He holds a Master of Science in Chemistry from Oklahoma State University and is a graduate of Oklahoma University Medical School, MD.  Rice is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, and retired in 2020. Currently, he co-chair of Alamosa Democrats.