THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 201, November 17, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AN ALARMIST MODELER'S HISTORY OF CLIMATE CHANGE:
Climate Changes & Their Causes Through the Ages,
As Explained by Al Gore & Modelers
By Paul K. Driessen
CLIMATE CHANGE & THE GORE-HANSEN ALARMIST THESIS: THE HYPOTHESIS & ASSERTION THAT INCREASING
ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS ARE CAUSING THE EARTH TO WARM DANGEROUSLY -- THE FUNDAMENTAL
ASSUMPTION BEHIND THE COMPUTER MODELS THAT CONSISTENTLY COMJURE UP HEADLINE-GRABBING CLIMATE
CHANGE DISASTER SCENARIOS -- HOW THE GORE-HANSEN THESIS WORKED THROUGH THE AGES
FULL STORY:
Behind the persistent global warming scare is the hypothesis and assertion that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels are causing Earth to warm dangerously. The thesis is espoused most prominently by Al Gore, James Hansen,
modelers, and other alarmists. It is the fundamental assumption behind the computer models that consistently conjure up
headline-grabbing climate change disaster scenarios.
A basic principle of geology and other sciences is that the same natural processes we observe today – erosion, plant
growth, species evolution, and so on – occurred in a similar manner throughout Earth’s history. Therefore, if carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing global warming today, they must have done so in the past, and certainly
in the recent historic past.
The challenge, then, is to discover the sources of that CO2 climate villain throughout history. This brief summary of key
events is intended to aid in that quest, and explain how the Gore-Hansen thesis worked through the ages.
Sea levels have risen 400 feet since the last Ice Age ended, melting mile-thick Pleistocene glaciers, drowning land bridges,
and creating new coral reefs. The repeated glacial and interglacial epochs were caused by rising and falling levels of
mammoth flatulence and emissions from cave man fires, the only sources of substantial greenhouse gases (GHG) at the
time.
In northern Africa, green river valleys were once home to contented hippopotami and happy human villagers. Then, 4,000
years ago, the region metamorphosed into the Sahara Desert, as Egyptian slaves cooked over open fires and breathed
heavily, while building pyramids for Pharaohs.
Earth warmed further during the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, as fires from constant warfare and sacked cities
dramatically increased GHG. The burning of English and Irish villages by Viking raiders raised global temperatures even
further, enabling Eric the Red to colonize Greenland. As the Vikings swapped raiding for farming, however, atmospheric CO2
levels declined, and the Little Ice Age set in.
For centuries, peaceable Anasazi Indians built cliff dwellings and farmed the land in Arizona and New Mexico. But, then,
other tribes began setting forest fires to create farmland, and lightning started prairie fires. GHG levels rose, causing a
prolonged drought that finally made life unbearable for the Anasazi, who abandoned their magnificent stone villages on the
Colorado Plateau.
In more recent times, American families tamed and farmed the Great Plains. But, then, the automobile, the airplane and World
War I drove CO2 and GHG to previously unheard of levels. The resultant Dust Bowl devastated the region, forcing millions
to leave their homesteads.
Fortunately, World War II intervened, and even higher concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, dust, and particulates
from burning oil and cities ended the warming and droughts, and ushered in a new era of global cooling. It was marked by
snows and freezing cold at Stalingrad and the Battle of the Bulge, and later by the “new Little Ice Age” scare headlined by
Newsweek in 1975.
As GHG levels continued to “soar,” all the way from 0.0280% of Earth’s atmosphere to 0.0350% (250-350 ppm), global
cooling gave way to a new bout with global warming. Finally, as CO2 and GHG climbed even higher (all the way to 0.0380%
of the atmosphere, equivalent to 38 cents out of $1000), planetary temperatures mysteriously stabilized around 1998 and then
began to decline slightly. The world entered the age of “climate change,” or more accurately “manmade catastrophic climate
change,” in which every weather anomaly is blamed on emissions from human use of hydrocarbons.
This brief recounting of human history is admittedly incomplete, and fails to address events in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
However, historians can certainly fill in those gaps.
Alternatively, scientists, journalists, academics, modelers, and politicians could begin to examine the climate change issue
from a more scientific, less ideological perspective. They could worry less about perpetuating or expanding the one-track
$89-billion (1989-2009) gravy train of federal government grants for breathless studies of how “manmade climate change”
causes frightening increases in everything from house cats and hurricanes to malaria, rainfall, droughts, and suicides. (An
online search under “everything is caused by global warming,” will locate a complete list.)
Gore, Hansen, Stephen Schneider, and Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry could actually engage in a few debates about
global warming/catastrophic climate change science and economics.
They might be surprised to learn that climate change has actually brought benefits to mankind and planet Earth, including a
greening of the Sahara Desert over the last twenty years, due to increased rainfall and CO2 levels. Even trees and animals are
coming back (four millennia after Egyptian slaves turned a once-verdant region into Earth’s largest desert).
They might be stunned to find that ice core and other data demonstrate that temperatures warmed first during past climate
changes, and then atmospheric CO2 levels increased, as warming ocean waters released some of the carbon dioxide that they
sequestered during colder periods.
They might be amazed to discover that our ancestors, who were even more dependent on agriculture than we are – and even
less technologically advanced – somehow managed to cope with climate change. They adapted! As James Burke, Brian
Fagan and other historians have noted, they responded to the Little Ice Age by modifying their houses, heating systems,
clothing, and farming practices. (Optimists might suppose that our far more advanced technologies will make us even better
able to adapt to whatever climate changes nature, or man, might visit upon us in the future.)
Alarmists might be shocked to think the causes of past climate changes were the same natural forces and influences that
drive changes in Earth’s complex, chaotic, unpredictable weather and climate today: continental movements and volcanoes,
and periodic shifts in water vapor and cloud cover, evaporation and precipitation, ocean currents and jet streams, planetary
alignments and the shape of the Earth’s orbit, the tilt and wobble of Earth’s axis, solar energy output, and cosmic rays
hitting the planet.
Meanwhile, hard-pressed consumers and taxpayers might finally figure out that the fear-mongering over global warming has
little to do with scientific “evidence” to back up the speculation, assumptions and assertions that mankind faces a climate
cataclysm. (Models are not evidence.) It has everything to do with money, prestige, careers, power and control over energy
use, and economic opportunity – and an abiding distaste for hydrocarbons, personal freedom, modern living standards, and
real environmental justice.
But don’t hold your breath for a debate. Climate alarmists are scared to death to debate. They prefer to dismiss and intimidate
climate realists, assert “consensus,” and assiduously ignore both Earth’s history of natural climate change and the 31,000
“Oregon Petition” natural scientists who vigorously contest their claims of manmade Climate Armageddon.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Paul Driessen is Senior Policy Adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the
All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a Senior Policy Adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality
and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity