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SPEAKING
FREELY
The global warming
scam
By Derek Kelly, PhD
Speaking
Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows
guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
Scam, noun: a swindle, a
fraudulent arrangement.
A
chronology of climate change
During most of
the last billion years the Earth did not have
permanent ice sheets. Nevertheless, at times large
areas of the globe were covered with vast sheets
of ice. Such times are known as glaciations. In
the past 2 million to 3 million years, the
temperature of the Earth has changed (warmed or
cooled) at least 17 times, some say 33, with
glaciations that last about 100,000 years
interrupted by warm periods that last about 10,000
years.
The last glaciation began 70,000
years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. The
Earth was a lot colder than it is now; snow and
ice had accumulated on a lot of the land, glaciers
existed on large areas and the sea levels were
lower.
15,000 years ago: The last
glaciation reaches a peak, with continental
glaciers that cover a lot of the sub-polar and
polar areas of the land areas of Earth. In North
America, all of New England and all of the Great
Lakes area, most of Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota and
the North Dakotas, lie under ice sheets hundreds
of meters thick. More than 37 million cubic
kilometers of ice was tied up in these global
sheets of ice. The average temperature on the
surface of the Earth is estimated to have been
cooler by approximately 6 degrees Celsius than
currently. The sea level was more than 90 meters
lower than currently.
15,000 years ago
to 6,000 years ago: Global warming begins. The
sheets of ice melt, and sea levels rise. Some heat
source causes approximately 37 million cubic
kilometers of ice to melt in approximately 9,000
years. Around 9,500 years ago, the last of the
Northern European sheets of ice leave Scandinavia.
Around 7,500 years ago, the last of the American
sheets of ice leave Canada. This warming is
neither stable nor the same everywhere. There are
periods when mountain glaciers advance, and
periods when they withdraw. These climatic changes
vary extensively from place to place, with some
areas affected while others are not. The tendency
of warming is global and obvious, but very uneven.
The causes of this period of warming are unknown.
8,000 years ago to 4,000 years ago:
About 6,000 years ago, temperatures on the surface
of Earth are about 3 degrees warmer than
currently. The Arctic Ocean is ice-free, and
mountain glaciers have disappeared from the
mountains of Norway and the Alps in Europe, and
from the Rocky Mountains of the United States and
Canada. The ocean of the world is some three
meters higher than currently. A lot of the present
desert of the Sahara has a more humid,
savannah-like climate, with giraffes and savannah
fauna species.
4,000 years ago to AD
900: Global cooling begins. The Arctic Ocean
freezes over, mountain glaciers form once more in
the Rocky Mountains, in Norway and in the Alps.
The Black Sea freezes over several times, and ice
forms on the Nile in Egypt. Northern Europe gets a
lot wetter, and the marshes develop again in
previously dry areas. The sea level drops to
approximately its present level. The temperatures
on the surface of the Earth are about 0.5-1 degree
cooler than at present. The causes of this period
of cooling are unknown.
AD 1000 to
1500: This period has quick, but uneven,
warming of the climate of the Northern Hemisphere.
The North Atlantic becomes ice-free and Norse
exploration as far as North America takes place.
The Norse colonies in Greenland even export crop
surpluses to Scandinavia. Wine grapes grow in
southern Britain. The temperatures are from 3-8
degrees warmer than currently. The period lasts
only a brief 500 years. By the year 1500, it has
vanished. The Earth experiences as much warming
between the 11th and the 13th century as is now
predicted by global-warming scientists for the
next century. The causes of this period of warming
are unknown.
1430 to 1880: This is
a period of the fast but uneven cooling of
Northern Hemisphere climates. Norwegian glaciers
advance to their most distant extension in
post-glacial times. The northern forests
disappear, to be replaced with tundra. Severe
winters characterize a lot of Europe and North
America. The channels and rivers get colder, the
snows get heavy, and the summers cool and short.
The temperatures on the surface of the world are
about 0.5-1.5 degrees cooler than present. In the
United States, 1816 is known as the "year with no
summer". Snow falls in New England in June. The
widespread failure of crops and deaths due to
hypothermia are common. The causes of this period
of cooling are unknown.
1880 to
1940: A period of warming. The mountain
glaciers recede and the ice in the Arctic Ocean
begins to melt again. The causes of this period of
warming are unknown.
1940 to 1977:
Cooling period. The temperatures are cooler than
currently. Mountain glaciers recede, and some
begin to advance. The tabloids inform us of
widespread catastrophes due to the "New
Glaciation". The causes of this period of cooling
are unknown.
1977 to present:
Warming period. The summer of 2003 is said to be
the warmest one since the Middle Ages. The
tabloids notify us of widespread catastrophes due
to "global warming". The causes of warming are
discovered - humanity and its
carbon-dioxide-generating fossil-fuel use and
deforestation.
Anyone else find something
fishy about the final sentence?
Comments
The above chronology of
recent (geologically speaking) climate changes
should place global-warming catastrophists (such
as those who developed the Kyoto treaty) in an
awkward position. Their fundamental assumption is
that Earth's climate was stable and was doing just
fine before the Industrial Revolution started
interfering with climate's "natural" state. It is
the Industrial Revolution, and in particular the
use of fossil-fuel-burning machines, that has led
us to the brink of environmental catastrophe due
to global warming caused by increasing amounts of
carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
But it is plain to see that both warming
and cooling occurred numerous times before the
Industrial Revolution. Similarly, all the dire
predictions of global-warming consequences -
sea-level rise, for example - have happened in the
past. In fact, the greatest warming period was
when dinosaurs walked the land (about 70 million
to 130 million years ago). There was then five to
10 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as there is
today, and the average temperature was 4-11
degrees Celsius warmer. Those conditions should
have been very helpful to life, since they
permitted those immense creatures to find an
abundance of food and they survived.
The
Cretaceous was an intense "greenhouse world" with
high surface temperatures. These high temperatures
were due to the much higher level of CO2 in the
atmosphere at the time - four to 10 times as much
as is in our air today. The biota was a mixture of
the exotic and familiar - luxuriant green forests
of now-extinct trees flourished within the Arctic
Circle and dinosaurs roamed. The global sea level
was at its highest ever during this period,
peaking during the Late Cretaceous around 86
million years ago. It is certain that the global
sea level was well over 200 meters higher during
this time than it is today. The Earth was
immensely hotter, the CO2 vastly more plentiful,
and the sea levels much higher than they are
today.
The Earth has also been immensely
colder, the CO2 much less plentiful, and the sea
levels much lower than today. Fifteen thousand
years ago, the sea level was at least 90 meters
lower than it is today. The land looked bare
because it was too cold for beech and oak trees to
grow. There were a few fir trees here and there.
No grass grew, however, just shrubs, bushes and
moss grass. In the northern parts of North
America, Europe and Asia there was still tundra.
The animals were different from today too. Back
then there were woolly mammoth, woolly rhinos,
cave bears (the former three now extinct), bison,
wolves, horses, and herds of reindeer like
modern-day reindeer.
The major "sin" for
the global warmists is CO2. The Kyoto treaty is
meant to reduce the amount of this gas so as, they
say, to reduce the degree of warming and
eventually return us to some stable climate
system. If we look at the historical situation,
however, this is cause for alarm. For one thing,
there has never been a stable climate system. For
another, the level of CO2 in our atmosphere is
near its historic low. In the long run, the
greatest danger is too little rather than too much
CO2. There has been a long-term reduction of CO2
throughout the 4.5-billion-year history of the
Earth. If this tendency continues, eventually our
planet may become as lifeless as Mars.
Glaciation has prevailed for 90% of the
last several million years. Extreme cold. Biting
cold. Cold too intense for bikinis and swimming
trunks. No matter what scary scenarios
global-warming enthusiasts dream up, they pale in
comparison with the conditions another ice age
would deliver. Look to our past climate. Fifteen
thousand years ago, an ice sheet a kilometer and a
half thick covered all of North America north of a
line stretching from somewhere around Seattle to
Cleveland and New York City.
Instead of
reducing CO2, we should, perhaps, be increasing
it. We should pay the smokestack industries hard
dollars for every kilogram of soot they pump into
the atmosphere. Instead of urging Chinese to stop
using coal and turn instead to nuclear-generated
electricity, we should beg them to continue using
coal. Rather than bringing us to the edge of
global-warming catastrophe, anthropogenic climate
change may have spared us descent into what would
be the most serious and far-reaching challenge
facing humankind in the 21st century - dealing
with a rapidly deteriorating climate that wants to
plunge us into an ice age. Let's hope Antarctica
and Greenland melt. Let's hope the sea levels
rise. All life glorifies warmth. Only death
prefers the icy fingers of endless winter.
What do you think?
Derek
Kelly, who has been an American university
teacher and a computer-software developer, is now
trying to help Chinese university students speak
English.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing. |
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