Part 1A : Ice is next, not Fire
The fixation on Global
Warming due to increased 'greenhouse gases', has dominated the
scientific community, mass media and popular western culture for over a decade.
It has created mass fear of an impending future of escalating
temperatures, melting ice caps, coastal flooding and submersion of New York,
Los Angeles, New Orleans and similar coast cities around the world -- and
expanding desert wastelands.
And human activity since the start of the
Industrial revolution (1760s) is always and solely blamed.
Every time there is an unusually
hot day or week or month -- or an extra cold period, the first words that come
out from TV or radio or print reports is to blame 'Global Warming' due to
human activity. This has been the mass media mindset ever since the
release of Al Gore’s 2006 documentary, An
Inconvenient Truth.
But, occasionally, a
radio or TV report will mention that this super hot day or super cold day
matches or is just above the record set in the 1950s or 1960s.
That very fact alone
should warn us to beware of the Global Warming hype and recognize that
our planet has its own cycle and fluctuations.
Another reality check
relates to 2005, the terrible year of hurricanes that was hallmarked by Hurricane
Katrina. Meteorologists and Global Warming experts all predicted that
hurricane seasons in the Caribbean and eastern U.S.A. would get worse: with
more and stronger hurricanes.
But that has not
happened.
In the years after
Katrina, hurricane activity DECLINED!
In fact, official U.S.
hurricane records starting in 1851 show a pattern of peak hurricane seasons
every 8 to 11 years with major declines at midpoints[i].
The year of Katrina, 2005,
is still the worst hurricane season on record, with 15, of which 7 were 'major'.
But 2006 saw only 5 of which just 2 were 'major', 2007 just 6 with only 2 major,
and the 'trough' in 2009 had a mere 3 hurricanes with 2 being classified
as major.
And 2012, 2014, 2015 each
had only 2 major hurricanes and 2013 had ZERO!
Finally, 1893 and 1916
each had 10 hurricanes of which 5 were major. 1933 had 11 hurricanes of which 6
were major. And 1950 still holds the record with 8 major hurricanes out
of 11.
American tornado records
also do not support the Global Warming theory.
2018
had the least number in 65 years[ii]. And the number of strong to violent (F3+) tornadoes
has declined enormously after peaking in 1974! [iii]
Even
a quick look at a Tornado tracking chart covering 1954 through 1918 shows a
regular cycle of increased frequency peaking every 8 to 10 years[iv]. It is also worth noting that
since 1995, only 2011 - with 553 deaths -- surpassed the norm of under 70
deaths[v].
So neither U.S.
hurricane nor tornado frequency and strength figures fit the Global Warming
theory.
Most importantly, the
fixation on Global Warming is blind to the white elephant in the room: the
rapidly upcoming next Ice Age!
Ice, not Fire
It is now just over 10,000
years since the final recession of the ice fields and glaciers that covered all
of Canada and northern USA, all of Scandinavia, Great Britain, Germany,
Poland and most of Russia for millions of years -- with up to 4 mile high
frozen snow and ice.
It is also and solely during these last ‘inter-glacial’
warm period that human civilization has arisen and flourished.
But the geological
record indicates such warm periods last only some 10,000 years before colder
weather and a return to an Ice Age begins again.
Put simply, the planet’s
past cycles would have the polar ice caps, and the ice fields and glaciers that
currently cover 20% of the Earth’s lands again begin to grow and (filled with
more and more of the world’s water from snow precipitation and ice) expand and flow
slowly toward the equator: tearing up or crushed all plants and rock features
in their relentless path. And, of course, pulverizing our homes and
cities.
According to one
calculation, it is now 11,700 years since the start of our warm era and we are
consequently ‘overdue’ for a rapid return to much colder and frozen world.[vi]
The 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow is a rare instance of someone (in Hollywood) realizing
that the planet tends to revert to more or less of a 'snowball' far
more often and for infinitely longer durations than warm periods such as ours.
Or some 50 million years
ago when Antarctica was lush and tropical, with abundant plant and animal
life. Yes, as reported by The Guardian,
July 17, 2011 and Daily Mail, new
research into Antarctica’s sea bed – drilling down a kilometer – found
fossilized pollen and other indications that Antarctica was a tropical paradise
of plants and animals with an atmospheric CO2 level of 1000 parts per
millions[vii].
Our current CO2 level, as
of February 20, 2019, is 410.65 ppm[viii]: some 2½ times LESS,
and increasing at a mere 3 ppm annually[ix].
So, while the trigger
gimmick in the movie and instant Ice Age is silly, we are, in fact, approaching
--or it may even be "overdue' -- for a much colder climate and
gradual return to an Ice Age as depicted in the film.
Only lands near the
Equator would be habitable unless we all learn the art of igloo building and
making mukluks.
So the 10,000 years of human
civilization and progress could come - more or less - to a screeching halt!
Little Ice Age example
The so-called Little Ice Age was a
time of cooler climate in most parts of the world. Although there is some
disagreement about exactly when the Little Ice Age started, records suggest
that temperatures began cooling around 1250 A.D. The coldest time was during
the 16th and 17th Centuries. By 1850 the climate began to warm[x].
Factors in a return to a
colder world climate have been uncovered by researchers studying the so-called
'Little Ice Age' which affected Europe and North America for over 500 years: from
approximately 1300 to 1870[xi].
Average global temperatures were cooler than today by 1-1.5
degree Celsius (2-3 degrees Fahrenheit) and dropped by 3 degrees Celsius (5.4
degrees Fahrenheit)[xii]
from the preceding so-called Medieval Warm Period: which had lasted 300 to 400
years.[xiii]
The disruptions of the
Little Ice Age have been well documented:
·
England’s major Thames river
froze over in winter ending normal boat travel and water commerce; replacing them
with winter river Frost Fairs[xiv] and ice skating.[xv]
·
Armies invaded by merely
walking over frozen rivers while naval fleets were frozen in harbor.
·
Cooler and wetter
summers led to crop failures, mass famines and starvation, and weakened immune
systems have been blamed for the massive deaths from the waves of the Black
Death and bubonic plague that killed 30% to 60% of Europe’s population,
and an estimated 75,000,000 to 200,000,000 people across Great Britain, Europe
and Asia all the way to China[xvi].
·
Mountain glaciers
expanded in the European Alps, New Zealand,
Alaska,
the southern Andes.[xvii] wiping out villages and
farms. Even Japan experienced this with mean winter temperatures dropping by 3.5 °C (6.3 °F).[xviii]
·
And the particularly
devastating 70 year period of 1645 to 1715 – when the sun went into a prolonged
‘quiet cycle’ called the Maunder Minimum – is also well documented.[xix]
The factors in this
sudden cooling are[xx]:
1. Changes to wind patterns and ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream which brings
equatorial heat to European waters[xxi].
2. Increased volcanic eruptions which spew out and
spread for hundreds of kilometres sun blocking ash particles, release massive
amounts of steaming hot water vapour that turn into sun blocking stratospheric
clouds, and extensive amounts of sun blocking sulphur dioxide[xxii] (as well as carbon
dioxide and other gases)[xxiii].
3. A severe reduction in
solar energy output from the Sun itself.
When solar flares - the basis of all light and heat to our planet -
suddenly drop substantially, called the Maunder
Minimum[xxiv]
4. The Earth’s variable orbit around the sun, shifts in the planet’s
axis, and its wobble - all of which affect the amount and strength of sun
rays which reach Earth (called the Milankovitch
Cycles.[xxv])
Cycles.[xxv])
5. Colder temperatures, increased snow precipitation and glacier flows
reduce the planet’s surface temperature and even block the formation of the
atmosphere’s essential greenhouse gases:
the earth's protective blanket that prevents solar heat from escaping back into
space.
Snow and glaciers destroy
land and water plants which normally, thanks to microbial bacteria and algae,
release essential O2, CO2 and CH4 into the atmosphere.
Colder temperatures also
reduce water (H2O) evaporation into the atmosphere; and H2O as water vapour and
clouds is the earth’s primary and predominant greenhouse gas blanket.
And, of course, cold and
snow and expanding glaciers reduce animal activity and animal survival – including
us.
These factors that lead to the return to a much colder climate and
the next Ice Age are all far beyond human intervention or activity – except
for possibly #5.
WE can affect CO2 and CH4 greenhouse gas levels, and this is the
only ‘intervention’ evenly remotely within human influence.
So, increased CO2 and CH4 levels are not our ‘enemy’ but our ‘ally’ and our only way to try to delay or
stop the return of another Ice Age; to prevent the demise of human
civilization and 10 millennia of human progress.
Beware 2030
According to the International
Panel on Climate Change report, October 2018, we have only 12 years left – to 2030
– to reduce CO2 levels and keep our rising global temperature to under 1.5
degrees Celsius (compared to the start of the Industrial Revolution (1760s)),
or we will cross a ‘tipping point’. Melting polar ice caps and melting glaciers:
which cover 20% of the planet, would by 2100 raise ocean levels by anywhere
from 1 to 3 feet – thereby flooding major coastal cities around the planet[xxvi]. And due to rising temperatures
more and more of the world’s arable lands will become desert wastelands.
But this scenario and projection ignores the Sun, its cycles and
impact on Earth.
According to researchers at Northumbria University, the next Maunder Minimum, an acknowledged
significant factor in the so-called Little Ice Age of the Middle Ages, will begin in 2030.
Sun spots and solar activity
will drop sharply, reducing solar rays and heat to the Earth. If it lasts as
long as the last such cyclical event, solar radiation and heat reaching the Earth
will be substantially reduced for 70 years (as between 1645 and 1715)[xxvii].
So beware 2030. On Earth, Ice has always won over Fire.
OVERALL CONCLUSION
The fear of Global
Warming that has taken hold of the scientific community, government agencies
and the western public is misguided and in the wrong direction.
Climate change is normal
and part of the Earth’s historic cycles.
Based on our modern
understanding of the Sun and its cycles, the Earth’s orbit and its own rhythms
and burps (volcanoes and earthquakes): as attested to by the long term
geological records of our planet, Gaia
is about to enter another prolonged, multi-million year, epoch of cold:
with rain being replaced by snow (at a conversion rate of 1 inch of rain = 1
foot of snow) and ice caps and glaciers again expanding toward the equator and covering
much of what human civilization has created over the last 10,000 years.
Our only hope, and the
only possible human activity to delay this ice ball future, is through increased
greenhouse gas levels – from carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane(CH4) emissions.
Otherwise, expect human
civilization to come to a grinding, frozen stop!
_________________________________________________________________________
NOTES:
1.
The Little Ice Age – in perspective
While the so-called Little Ice Age had many negative effects
as noted above, these downsides, and even having to wear warmer clothes and use
umbrellas more often, did not stop human progress.
It was also the era of the Renaissance and Enlightenment:
Copernicus, Galileo and Isaac Newton, Di Vinci and Michelangelo, Henry VIII,
Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, the American Revolution, the French Revolution
and Napoleon.
It gave us -- when Lord Byron, the Shelleys and other
friends were forced to stay indoors during a bitterly cold and rainy Alps
summer -- the novel Frankenstein.
And, lastly, it gave birth to the Industrial Revolution
(1760s onward) and mass urbanization.
But what we are looking at is not just a drop of 1 degree Celsius
to even 3 degrees Celsius. The planet’s average temperature during the last
full Ice Age was, compared to today, 7
degrees Celsius (12 degrees Fahrenheit) colder! Enough to keep snow and ice from melting in
the summer![xxviii] The continually building snow and ice
glaciers flowed toward the equator at a speed of 200 feet to 400 feet each
year,[xxix]
toppling and crushing all that was in their way.
2.
Sahara and Gobi Deserts – Jekyll and Hyde
As everyone knows, the Gobi desert in Asia and the Sahara desert
across North Africa are endless
wastelands of sand and moving sand dunes.
The northern Gobi now gets less than 8 inches of rain per year and the equatorial
and much hotter Sarah gets less than half-an-inch a year[xxx].
But this was not always the case. The Gobi is one of the planet’s
major areas for finding dinosaur bones and fossils and birdlike nests. So it was once a lush and bountiful tropical
land of shrubs and trees and grass and water[xxxi]. Dinosaurs cannot have lived in anything less.
Similarly, up to some 6000 years ago, the Sahara was a lust
tropical area abundant with plants and trees, with at least 6 flowing rivers,
and home to elephants, giraffes, bison, big cats and crocodiles (as depicted on ancient rock wall
etchings)[xxxii]
But something happened to the planet and weather patterns that
transformed the Gobi millions of years ago, and the Sahara in a mere 5500 years
ago from ‘paradise’ into the wasteland we see today[xxxiii].
So, put simply, rapid and drastic changes in our planet’s climate
and lands is neither unknown nor unusual, and a rapid descent into another Ice
Age is not fantasy.
[i] http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html
[ii] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/04/2018-us-tornadoes-lowest-in-65-years-of-record-keeping/
[iii] https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/24/2018-u-s-tornadoes-on-track-to-be-lowest-ever-noaas-temperature-trends-blow-a-hole-in-climate-correlation/
[iv]
Ibid.
[v]https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBD_enCA810CA810&biw=1600&bih=757&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=ULBuXMqRNMbYsQXHtaSYDg&q=US+tornado+records+chart+by+year+to+2018&oq=US+tornado+records+chart+by+year+to+2018&gs_l=img.3...3430.3430..3844...0.0..0.60.60.1......0....1..gws-wiz-img.lQLEPWC-gLI#imgrc=dEcv1t40CmWOwM:
[vi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial
[vii] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/17/antarctica-tropical-climate-co2-research
[viii]
https://www.co2.earth/daily-co2
[ix] https://www.ecowatch.com/noaa-carbon-dioxide-levels-2321635970.html
[xi] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
[xiii]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period cites
300 years but https://www.britannica.com/science/Little-Ice-Age give the medieval warm period as 400 years.
[xiv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs,
https://www.google.com/search?q=thames+river+little+ice+age&rlz=1C1CHBD_enCA810CA810&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjsjcfwx8_gAhVn94MKHcQwDnYQ_AUIDygC&biw=1583&bih=736#imgrc=WKYQydFi6U5xQM:,
and numerous illustrations at https://www.google.com/search?q=thames+river+little+ice+age&rlz=1C1CHBD_enCA810CA810&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjsjcfwx8_gAhVn94MKHcQwDnYQ_AUIDygC&biw=1583&bih=736#imgrc=WKYQydFi6U5xQM:
[xv] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25862141
[xx] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
[xxi] https://www.livescience.com/13573-east-coast-colder-europe-west-coast.html
[xxii]
https://study.com/academy/lesson/volcanic-eruption-gases-released-their-effects.html
[xxiii]
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/book/export/html/151
[xxiv] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Solar/sunspot.html#c2. See also
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/we-could-be-heading-mini-ice-age-2030/ “Thanks To Reduced
Solar Activity, We Could Be Heading For A Mini Ice Age In 2030”.
[xxv] http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/milankovitch.htm
[xxvi]
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/sea-level-rise/
and see G&M, April 24, A9, “Vancouver mulls action against gas-powered cars”.
[xxix]
Ibid.
