THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 79, May 23, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PREPARE FOR A BIT OF COOLING
By Dennis T. Avery
A THIRTY-YEAR PERIOD OF GLOBAL COOLING AHEAD: GEOLOGIST DON EASTERBROOK PREDICTS AN END TO
GLOBAL WARMING, AT LEAST FOR THE NEXT THREE DECADES. NO REASON TO REJOICE. EXPECT COLDER
WINTERS TO KILL MORE PEOPLE, WHILE CROP PRODUCTION SUFFERS FROM FROM SHORTER GROWING SEASONS & FROM
HARVESTS DISRUPTED BY THE WEATHER. TOTAL SOLAR ACTIVITY WILL CONTINUE TO DECLINE.
EVENTUALLY, THE PLANET WILL GET ANOTHER GREAT ICE AGE, WITH GLACIERS COVERING ALL OF CANADA & THE
NORTHERN PORTION OF THE U.S.A.
FULL STORY:
“Global warming is over — at least for a few decades,” geologist Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus at Western
Washington University, told the Heartland Institute’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change on May 19,
2010. However, he warned us not to rejoice. Colder Winters kill twice as many people as hot weather, while crop
production suffers from shorter growing seasons and weather-disrupted harvests.
Dan Miller, climate expert with the Roda Group and ardent believer in anthropogenic global warming, responded to
Easterbrook at Fox News: “It’s absurd to talk about global cooling when global heating is with us and
accelerating.” But Miller is referring to the current temperature spike from an El Nino in the Pacific Ocean — a shortterm
climate event already ending, according to Pacific sea surface temperatures. The key question now is where the
temperatures will go after the El Nino fades.
Easterbrook offered geological evidence that the earth has had ten big “recent” warmings that dwarf the 0.7 degree
temperature increase estimated for the 20th century. Over the past 15,000 years, those temperature shifts drove the
earth’s temperatures radically up or down by 9-15 degrees Celsius within a single century. He also noted 60 sharp, but
smaller, temperature changes in the past 5,000 years. All of these occurred before 1945, when the post-World War II
Industrial Boom began to ramp up human-emitted CO2 levels.
Easterbrook calls this evidence “astonishing.” Current data seem to support Easterbrook’s prediction of an end to
global warming, at least for the next three decades. Since 1998, atmospheric CO2 has continued to increase — but total
solar activity, as measured by satellites, has declined sharply after trending strongly, but erratically, upward for 150
years.
Satellite-measured solar activity has also been trending down moderately, which essentially predicts cooling. And the
Pacific Decadal Oscillation has shifted into its cool phase, as NASA told us in 2008. Tree rings and coral samples tell
us these PDO shifts have predicted moderate cooling for the whole earth, lasting for about 30 years at a stretch.
Easterbrook predicts that this PDO phase will last until 2030, with warming from 2030 to 2060, and then cooling again
to 2090.
The PDO, however, doesn’t seem to control whether the planet as a whole will warm or cool over the next century.
Easterbrook’s geology says powerful, natural cycles, probably solar-driven, control longer-term climate trends. Ice
cores, seashells, and fossil pollen all show a moderate, but abrupt, 1,500-year cycle, which apparently gave us the
Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming, the Roman Warming, and 500 similar previous warmings over the past million
years.
The prediction: Higher temperatures will not parboil the earth. Global warming will continue, slowly and erratically,
perhaps with another 0.5 degree Celsius over several hundred years. The biggest danger will be extended drought in
unusual regions, almost certainly including Kenya and California. Such drought ended the Mayan civilization in the
9th. Century. But it’s as unstoppable as the sun itself. This very real threat should be the focus of modern
technology in helping effected areas to adapt.
Eventually, we’ll get another big Ice Age, and our descendents will deride the memory of Al Gore’s “inconvenient
truth” — as they shiver watching glaciers approach Chicago.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, is an environmental economist. He was
formerly a senior analyst for the U.S. Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer, of Unstoppable
Global Warming Every 1500 Hundred Years.
Readers may write Avery at PO Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421, or send email to cgfi@hughes.net
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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