Global warming overblown?

DOES THE ICE AGE COMETH?
THE CASE FOR GLOBAL COOLING

By: Phil Brennan

It's cold out there - colder than it's been in a long time, so cold that low temperature records are falling like snowflakes in a blizzard. In an era when the likes of Dan Rather and the coterie of global warming propagandists are warning us that the earth is about to become a huge barbecue pit, the current cold wave should be a wake-up call - a sign that the blast furnace may not be the sign of the future after all.

Back in the summer of 1997 I wrote a nine-part investigative report on climate change: Global Warming or Globaloney. It attracted a lot of attention at the time, but given the fact that the nation was being barraged by advocates of the socialist global warming propaganda campaign and their media allies, what I had to say fell mostly on deaf ears.

After all, a lot of the global warming enthusiasts appeared to have all sorts of impressive sounding scientific credentials and who's going to pay attention to a mere journalist with no academic background in climatology who claimed that global warming was a contrived myth and that there was every reason to believe that the current interglacial period of temperate weather has about reached its end.

Well, as the snow piles up and temperatures plunge to record lows, maybe it's time to take another look at the matter.

Let's start with the record breaking cold weather now plaguing most of the Northern hemisphere. If you paid any attention to Dan Rather, the New York Times and a lot of their global warming cohorts, you'd believe that the polar ice cap is rapidly melting away and it won't be long before the North Pole becomes a tropical paradise.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the polar ice cap is the machine that sends icy blasts southward. The colder and thicker the ice cap, the colder the winds it sends in our direction. It would seem to be reasonable to suggest that perhaps instead of slowly melting, the ice cap is getting icier and thicker. After all, a warming polar ice cap simply can't produce the bitter cold weather that it is presently sending southward.

In Global Warming or Globaloney, I raised some questions that nobody in on the global warming scam was ever able to answer. I'll now ask them again.

1. Climatological records show that whenever the level of CO2 rose above 290ppm, an ice age inevitably followed. I repeat, inevitably followed. When I wrote my report the level had already reached 362ppm and was still climbing.

Question: If the Climatological record shows that this indicator of climate change is an accurate predictor of an approaching ice age, why should we not expect it to be performing that function once again? What's past is prologue. If the rise of CO2 levels above 290ppm, has always indicated coming global cooling, why should we not view it as such now?

2. There have been a series of seven ice ages over the last 700,000 years, according to paleological records - one every hundred thousand years or so, followed by an interglacial period of about 10 to 12 thousand years. The last ice age ended about 10,800 years ago, meaning that the present interglacial period is approaching its end.
Question: If the past is prologue, and interglacial periods last only 10 to 12 thousand years, and we are approaching the end of that cycle, why should we believe that what appears to be an immutable law of nature has suddenly been repealed by Al Gore, Dan Rather , Mikhail Gorbachev and the New York Times?

3. The rise in CO2 levels that signaled the end of interglacial periods over the past 700,000 years occurred as the result of natural causes. Now we are being told that the levels of this so-called "greenhouse gas" are mainly the result of nasty old mankind polluting the atmosphere with all sorts of disgusting junk, such as the residue of fossil fuels. Mother Nature, they say, had nothing to do with it.

Question: If CO2 levels skyrocketed prior to the onset of the last ice age, 100,000 years ago, with no help from mankind, and when there wasn't a Toyota or an backyard barbecue oven around to create greenhouse gasses, why should be believe that those levels are rising now solely because of humanity's refusal to go back to the technological dark ages and forego their cars and trucks and other appurtenances of modern life?

Here's a brief summary from Global Warming or Globalony:

"'Most people who worry about global warming assume that the earth's temperature right now is ecologically ideal and that any significant warming would be harmful if not disastrous. Scientists who take the longer view know otherwise. " wrote Kent Jeffreys of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in the National Center for Policy Analysis' Policy Report #96.

*In the past two to three million years the earth's temperature has gone through at least 17 climate circles, with ice ages typically lasting about 100,000 interrupted by warming periods lasting about 10,000 years.
*Since by some calculations the current warm period is about 13,000 years old, the next ice age is overdue."

"Jeffreys notes the fact that back in the 1970s: 'Many scientists warned of a coming ice age, and with good reason. Although there has been a slight increase in average temperatures during the twentieth century, many regions of the globe have experienced sustained cooling trends.'

••The record speaks for itself. In the history of the Earth, ice ages are the norm. They occur regularly as clockwork and as such, must be regarded as immutable laws of nature. It would be sheer folly to believe that this law has somehow been repealed.

••We are now between 10,800 and 13,000 years removed from the end of the last ice age. Is it not prudent to expect the onset of another ice age?
••Studies have show that when atmospheric levels of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) -- the principal greenhouse gas -- exceeded 290 parts per million (ppm), the last ice age began. The current levels of CO2 exceed 362 ppm and they continue to rise.

Studies of data collected from ocean bottom samples 200 miles off the coast of Ecuador by Nickolas Shackleton and associates at Britain's Cambridge University provided CO2 readings for the past 130,000 years, a period covering the last interglacial, the ice age that followed, and the current interglacial.

"These data confirmed the rise of CO2 levels that preceded the last ice age, and the point at which the process became inevitable."
Finally, ice ages approach slowly. If you live in New York you're in no danger of being buried under a sheet of ice a mile thick, unless you plan to be around 30,000 years from now. But it is going to start getting colder and colder. If, as the evidence shows, the present interglacial period is ending, summers will be progressively shorter and cooler, and winters will get progressively longer and colder.

And despite the arrogance of those socialist King Canutes who will stand in front of the approaching wave of cold and icy weather and demand that it go away, as they have with their global warming fantasy, there's not a damn thing we can do to prevent nature from doing what she wants to do and always has done.

For the full text of Global Warming or Globaloney go to http://www.pvbr.com/Issue_1/global.htm - and remember, it was written in 1997.

http://www.etherzone.com/2001/bren012401.shtml

While I think of myself as one who takes the long view, I find it hardly comforting to think we don't have to worry about the problem because, after all, over the past billion years or so the climate has changed a lot.

These days the glaciers are melting. If burning less fossil fuel would help reverse the trend, are we supposed to, like, not bother, because they probably melted thousands of years ago, too? That's the message I'm gleaning from some of the above posts...

Programme on British TV at the weekend, said rise in temperature of 2 to 4 degrees of the North Sea (which is the shallow sea between GB and Norway/ northern Europe) meant that plankton type and density had changed, and they were breeding later in the season, since colder seas are more productive for fish life (more dissolved oxygen and nutrient, I suppose) and this means that the cod stocks cannot recover since the cod fry need plentiful plankton early in the season.
So, the fish types found in this sea are changing, and becoming less plentiful, even allowing for the activities of the fishing industry.

Foxfyre makes some good points, but also illustrates that the "experts" on both sides are guessing. The info is dated since it mentions Mikial Gorbacheck as a current source of globalbalony. It suggest the last ice age ended 10800 or 13,000 years ago = not comforting precision. 17 cycles of climate change or 10 ice ages = the fossil record is unclear?
Carbon dioxide is slightly soluble in ice, so how much dissolved in 112,000 years from the air bubbles in the ice which now measures 290 (adjusted) parts per million of carbon dioxide?
Which resent winters have been colder (and which have been warmer) in the Northern hemisphere, and is it by enough degrees to be significant? Probably not. Neil

D write:


In reading and reading on this subject I find more or less three schools of thought:

1) Those who are absolutely positively certain that global warming is a fact and that it is fact that it is CO2 emissions created by humans that is a huge contributing factor to this.

2) Those who are relatively certain that it is far more likely that we will have the next ice age before global warming will be a problem.

3) Those who say there is inconclusive data one way or the other.

Those in group 1 seem to be those scientists who do their research with government grants and at such time as they determine there is no problem, their funding goes away.

In groups 2 and 3, it is not unanimous but there is a significant majority who say whether the earth cools or the earth warms, these are cyclical phenomena and humans aren't affecting it one way or the other. One illustration I've seen is that one volcanic eruption, and volcanos are erupting somewhere most of the time, puts more CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the air than the culmination of all emissions put out by the entire industrialized world.

I'm no scientist so don't hold me to any of this. I'm just reporting what I've read.

In answer to D, my opinion is that yes. We need to be aware of the consequences to air, water, soil, wildlife, quality of life, etc. in all that we do. What I think we need, however, is to know what is a problem and what isn't before we pass a lot of costly rules and regulations that will cost jobs, take away personal freedoms, and/or lower our quality of life.

I cannot dredge it up because it's been at least a year but the Indians had to add a new word to their vocabulary for slush up at the pole , because slush did not exist in their world and now it did.

There is no further proof necessary than that to me that a major climate change is underway.

Hi Bi-Polar Bear: Some global warming enthusiests make up stories such as "slush" Some 70 year old encyclopedias report that the typical high for the year on the island nearest to the North pole is 80 degrees f, so how could we think the natives of that island have not experienced slush even a century ago? Neil

Hi foxfyre: I am in a 4th group: A small amount of global warming has occurred. Humans made a tiny contribution. We should stop wasting money on studies and fund some pilot programs to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. None look promising, but a break though is unlikely unless we do some pilot programs. No billion dollar projects should be funded. Neil

neil, Sounds like a sane and logical way to proceed.

I'm trying to see the harm in encouraging alternatives to using fossil fuels. Even if global warming isn't a problem (which I doubt), does anyone think we wouldn't be better off if we used less petroleum?

One example of a program that might help: There's now a federal tax break for buyers of hybrid cars. Last year, the break was $2000, and this year it's only $1500. And it will be reduced until it's gone. What if the break were $4000--supposedly the price difference between a hybrid and a comparable gas-powered vehicle.

What harm would there be in that? Jobs lost? I don't see how.

Could return to the Stanley Steamer, d'art,( that vehicle became airborne right here on Daytona Beach) but that would mean a depletion of our water supply. Did I see that the drought in the West is almost as bad as the dust bowl?

Letty, Just gotta have a water purification system in that steamer. LOL

C.I, Reverse osmosis, perhaps?

(I promise not to sing The Stanley Steamer song)

I don't make the Stanley Steamer song Letty. Want to borrow my karaoke machine?

Actually I think there is a lot of research going into alternate fuels. It's just that nobody has yet to come up with anything more practical and/or efficient than the internal combustion engine in all but for very limited uses. And gasoline is about as environmentally friendly as anything else. Some fuels burn more clean than others but some clean fuels, such as helium, are very 'dirty' to make so that it is actually less environmentally friendly.

I support clean emissions however as I prefer clean air to breathe. I am not convinced a good case has been made that fossil fuels are a factor in global warming.

Fox

You mean hydrogen
Or are you talking LENR?

Heard of sequestration?

Or carbon neutral energy sources?

Steve I'm a gross amateur as a scientist so I'm not familiar with too many terms. I am just simply fascinated by environmental science. My main coach on the subject of fuels and the process of making them is my son who is a petroleum/mechanical engineer with Conoco Phillips.

In this case, no I meant helium. There is a large helium plant near Amarillo Tx and there have apparently been engines adapted to use it for fuel.

Hi cicerone: You need to explain the low cost solution to oil tanker spills. Big fines, perhaps, regardless of the excuses?
I'm opposed to keeping campers out of our forests as this would aid terrorists and other criminals. We can reduce the forest fires and capture more carbon dioxide by requiring loggers to leave at least one healthy tree in every 20 meter square of the forest. The Loggers must also be required to remove the tree limbs and branches that they typically leave in the forest at present. This would make the logged forest like a city park with near negligible fire hazard. It would increase the price of lumber and increase imports, but no plan is perfect. Neil

Thanks McTag.

There's some extremely worrying fisheries data out there. Like the 50% decline in zooplankton off the coast of California.

But I know I can't convince some people of the need to at least TRY to reduce CO2 emissions, so I won't.

Foxfyre

Are you suggesting global warming not a real phenomenum?
Or that it is exaggerated in some way?
Or that it is not anthropogenic?
Or that it will all blow over?


I'm sorry if I sound patronising but you raise a very interesting question, one that I would like to get involved with, but in the way you have phrased it, I don't understand what you are asking.

When I said "low cost" of oil transport, meant double sized metal plates to protect the hulls, and big fines. 'Low cost' also means low damage to our environment. I like your idea of thinning out the forests to prevent forest fires. Lumber is already expensive; we import most of it today.