Global Warming: The Untold Story
Daily we are besieged by stories of impending doom. Former President wannabe Al Gore warns “ Our ability to live is what is at stake.” Governors Schwarzenegger of California and Crist of Florida warn that if something isn’t done and done soon the beach communities we enjoy will disappear.
Self-appointed scientists from around the world, whether they have studied the concept of global warning or not, warn that man through his failure to control carbon dioxide emissions is creating a crises of unimaginable proportions. We are deluged with stories from all corners of the media in the United States and worldwide that the polar ice-caps are melting, the polar bears face extinction, land is being devastated by drought, and weather extremes will inflict all kinds of hardship on man and the environment.
We are told that man, especially in the wealthier countries, and his indiscriminate use of fossil fuels is inflicting this potential hardship on every one. Only through draconian measures and the expenditure of billions of dollars can the planet as we know be saved.
According to the Gorians (the Al Gore fanatics) it may be too late. They state that unless we change our evil ways “we're in for 'a planetary emergency': melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms.” They say we must change the way we live now.
We can’t dispute the fact that the earth has gotten warmer. In fact 10-15,000 years ago the earth as we know it was covered with a thick layer of ice. For the ice to recede, the earth had to get warmer.
We are told that we should look to history for answers to many of life’s questions because history for some reason has a tendency to repeat itself. Yet writers of today and their so-called scientific sources seem to want to ignore the past. The United Nations comes out with a statement that the earth’s temperature has risen 0.7 a degree centigrade in the past 100 years and everyone jumps into panic mode.
But, what does history tell us? In our recent past we have had many periods of warming and cooling. From the 9th Century to the 13th Century AD, Europe experienced what was known as the medieval warming period, quite similar to what is happening today. Did the Europeans panic? No, this was one of the greatest expansion periods of Europe. During this period the Vikings traveled to Greenland, which was green at the time, and established significant colonies until the climate changed and the ice returned.
In the 14th Century and lasting until the 18th Century the earth then cooled and Europe in particular experienced what is know as the mini-ice age. The cooling period brought dire consequences to its peoples. As is being predicted by the Gorians today, with global warming the colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciations and storms also had a devastating affect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea. One of the worst famines occurred in 1693 when millions in France and surrounding countries died. The cold reach a peak in France in 1816 when they experienced what was called “a year without summer”.
But for many that is ancient history. We can’t remember that Mother Nature, for whatever reason, has a tendency to change the weather that is offered the inhabitants of what we call earth. Can we remember the past 100 years and what has been experienced during this more recent past? Well in the past 100 years we have experienced four periods, 4, when the weather and the so-called scientific forecasters have screamed doom from impending weather changes.
During the period of 1895 and 1932 there were dire calls from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and scientific magazines that the ice age had returned. Top scientists predicted that the Arctic ice would wipe out Canada. Then starting in 1929 to1962 these same prognosticators changed positions 180 degrees and the fear switched to global warming. The Los Angeles Times reflected the reports of others stating that most geologists think, “ the world is growing warmer and will continue to grow warmer.”
Yet wait. The year 1974 and Time magazine issued a forecast of a “World Food Crises.” Because of warming? No, because the ice age was returning. Newsweek in its wisdom issued the statement that meteorologists were almost unanimous (sound familiar?) in the view that cooling will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.
Then in 1981 everyone switched gears again and--what do you know?-- global warming returned, and a majority of the scientific community concurs. The Washington Post predicted that the change in climate will “quite literally alter the fundamentals of life on the planet.”
All of this comes from scientists and meteorologists that have a difficult time predicting what the weather will be tomorrow. m Is the sky really falling? Keep an open and skeptical mind!
Michael Ashbury is a freelance writer from Medford, New Jersey.