Global Warming: Not a Danger

It’s been cold. No doubt you’ve noticed.

The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere may cause modest warming, but far more important is the sun’s emissions of energy. These emissions seem to correlate with the number of sunspots. During the last decade, sunspots have been less frequent than they’ve been in the last one hundred years. This may foreshadow unusually cold weather for a considerable time.

Global-warming proponents have consistently exaggerated their warming predictions. They base their work on computer models, which are guesses, not scientific fact. Computer models can readily be manipulated to show what the operators want them to show.

Most of the personal income of scientists comes directly or indirectly from the federal government. It’s no surprise that some scientists have become less concerned with the truth and more concerned with toeing the government line.

Here are the approximate warm-and-cold periods during the last two millennia:

·       The earth’s temperature warmed from 200 BC to 100 AD. This is referred to as the Roman Climate Optimum.

·       It cooled during the dark ages, from 100 to 900.

·       It warmed from 900 to 1400 – the Medieval Warming Period. Around the year 1000, when not a single SUV could be found, the world was warmer than it is now.

·       The world cooled from 1400 to 1850 – the Mini-Ice Age. The period from 1645 to 1715, referred to as the Maunder Minimum, was especially cold. As far as could be determined, there were no sunspots during those years.

·       The earth warmed from 1850 to 1940.

·       It cooled from 1940 to 1975. Fossil-fuel emissions during World War II and the three decades that followed brought large percentage increases in atmospheric CO2. Despite this spurt, the earth cooled.

·       Warming occurred from 1975 to 1998.

Professor Michael Mann's renowned "hockey stick" graph omits the medieval warming period from 900 to 1400 and the mini-ice age from 1400 to 1850. His graph shows world temperatures remaining flat until 1850, then roaring upward, making the current warming seem like an anomaly.

Much has been made of the diminishment of Arctic ice. But while this was occurring, the ice surrounding the Antarctic was the widest in recorded history, due, perhaps, to a wobbling of the earth’s axis? After the March of the Penguins movie was seen, hundreds of thousands of penguin chicks died because the parents were unable to cross the widened ice sheet in time to feed them.

Fears of rising ocean levels are exaggerated. Glaciers have been melting and the oceans rising for 12,000 years. Since 1860, the ocean has risen at about 3 millimeters a year. At this rate, an increase of even one meter would take more than three centuries.

Oh yes, and the polar bears are flourishing.

We need not fear an increase of atmospheric CO2. When wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton, and other widely-used plants evolved more than 65 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 was at least 3,000 parts per million, far above today’s 400 ppm. Plant life then flourished.

Global-warming proponents acknowledge that a significant reduction of fossil fuels would reduce the earth’s temperature a century from now by less than year-to-year fluctuations. They recommend the reductions anyway, even though the resulting shortage of food could cause millions of poor people to starve.

From 1940 to 1975, the earth cooled. Global-warming proponents predicted we were doomed from the cold. Fossil fuels were the cause. Bigger and more intrusive government to force the reduction of atmospheric CO2 was the solution.

From 1975 to 1998, the earth warmed. The proponents predicted we were doomed from the heat. Fossil fuels were the cause. Bigger and more intrusive government was the solution.

The proponents now tout anecdotal evidence that weather changes have been more extreme than usual. Again, we’re doomed. Fossil fuels are the cause. Bigger and more intrusive government is the solution.

Fossil fuels may cause lukewarming, but the notion that fossil fuels are putting mankind in danger is way overblown. The world now spends $1 billion a day to cut fossil-fuel usage. It’s an outrageous waste.