The subject of climate change is heating up. Obama is pushing this issue as part of his second term. Rarely does a day go by when a storm, a drought, or an endangered species, is not blamed on global warming or climate change.
Who can deny climate change has not been occurring since the Earth was born? Who on Earth has any idea what direction climate change will take in the near or distant future? Should it change consistently for the worse, we have three options: run away, adapt, or mitigate.
Running away means leaving the planet in huge numbers. Even though we landed on the moon over 40 years ago, mankind has squandered trillions of dollars fighting amongst ourselves, and making bad decisions, long before the moon landing, and ever more errors since. Not only could we not save 10 people, but we wouldn’t know where to go; if we knew where to go, we are incapable of getting there. Because the Earth will neither boil nor freeze overnight, there is still some time to work on running away.
Man is an adaptable species, that will be our best chance. Some will survive, some will not. It will come back to survival of the fittest. Darwinism. The left loves the “science” of evolution and global warming, but they will call adaptation cruel and inhumane anyway.
Mitigation is the joke of our time. Forecasters have trouble predicting what the weather will be over the next five days. Computer modelers have not been able to build a weather or climate model that can predict anything accurately, but their inadequate models are relied on much too often. There have been many experiments to control weather and climate, and some success has been achieved, but only on a small scale. It will probably take the better part of a millennium for us to be able to control weather/climate on a planet-wide scale.
There are a few things that are dishonest about this debate. Again three issues come to mind: the role of the sun and natural planetary processes, proof that man is contributing, and the climate cycle.
The sun drives 95 percent of climate and weather changes, and we are still learning about how the sun works, with two major discoveries in the last year and a half alone. Natural planetary processes and reactions control the other 5 percent.
I haven’t seen any proof that man is contributing, or that mitigating greenhouse gases will have any controlling effect. But if I give the global warming/climate change proponents the benefit of the doubt, and agree man is a contributor, the maximum damage man can do is about four tenths of one percent (0.4 percent). Should we invest any money, let alone trillions of dollars, in a dubious attempt to mitigate .4 percent of planetary warming and believe that will save mankind?
The most devastating argument against global warming is the climate cycle, and it is never mentioned. This cycle has been consistent for at least three billion years; it is not likely to change anytime soon. It consists of a cooling and a warming cycle. In the cooling cycle, glaciers come down from the arctic and cover the Northern Hemisphere down to Delaware. It is hard to believe, but the glaciers can be up to a mile and a half thick! The power of nature is truly awesome. During the warming period the glaciers melt and retreat back to the arctic. The cooling periods last about 100,000 years and the warming periods last 15,000 to 20,000 years.
We are 18,000 years into the warming cycle! That means the new ice age could have begun 3000 years ago; luckily for us, it did not. But it could have begun last week, or it may not begin for another 2000 years. Who knows when it will happen? But happen it will. No one even knows what event(s) will trigger such a cycle? Those are the questions we should be asking, and the perspective we should be aware of.
Pray for global warming! Global warming, technology, and adaptation may be the only things that can save man from the inevitability of the coming ice age.
Armand Carreau
Bridgeville
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