Greenland

Have you ever wondered why Greenland, the Island in the North Atlantic covered with Glacial ice is called, well, “green” land? I thought it was probably a rueful joke. But I was wrong. Greenland was very green during the last Global Warming period (A.D. 800 – 1300). The Vikings actually farmed there. Later the earth began to cool, and the green land slowly became white with ice and snow.

Global warming more than 800 years ago? Must have been auto emissions, or industrial pollution. No, that can’t be. It must have been all the CO2 humans pumped into the atmosphere. Oh wait, that was before the industrial revolution when the population of the earth was about 300 million, just more that 5 percent of today’s.

Hmmm. Curious.

But today, it’s different, at least that’s what Al Gore and the MSM have told us, bolstered by a recently released UN climate report, based on computer models that cannot accurately reproduce today’s climate using 100 year old data (a key indicator for the accuracy of a mathematical models is their ability to produce known results from known data), insists that catastrophic climate change is upon us and worse, that the industrialized nations, primarily the US of A, are the culprits. For some scientists, this argument has transcended science and become a religion … and that’s the problem.

It’s important to note that there is absolutely no debate that the world is getting warmer. Simple year-to-year temperature measurements and trend analysis indicate that it is. The debate is over why, and despite what you hear from the MSM, there is plenty of controversy within the scientific community on this subject.

To illustrate, consider Timothy Ball (PhD in Climatology from the University of London, 32 years as a professor of climatology at the University Of Winnepeg):

Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification.

... Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970's global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990's temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I'll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.

... As [Richard] Lindzen [an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, who is also critical of catastrophic climate change] said many years ago: "the consensus [about climate change] was reached before the research had even begun." Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.

Now, Ball could be wrong and quotes from one scientist do not prove that the climate change "consensus" is incorrect, but voices such as Ball's, and there are many, do not generally get media attention or are spun so that the "climate change denier" label is attached. Those of us who worry that bad science lies behind climate change claims readily express uncertainty -- it's the only honest response to a complex issue.

But Luddites and Leftists are convinced to an absolute certainty that the West is to blame, mostly because it fits nicely into their political worldview --- rapacious capitalists raping mother earth.

A calmer review of the literature indicates that they might be right, but it’s likely they’re wrong. Here’s why.

Worldwide temperature oscillates on a multi-century cycle, mini ice age, followed by warming period, followed by cooling and so forth. Historical evidence, not models, indicates that this is irrefutably true. But the warming and cooling periods of the past had nothing to do with industrialization or human derived pollution of the modern kind, because there wasn’t any.

Jack Kelly reports:

Leaks of the [UN] panel's report coincided with publication of two books which link climate change to a long, moderate solar cycle.

In "Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years," Fred Singer and Dennis Avery present evidence of 600 moderate warmings in the last million years.

In "The Chilling Stars," Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder discuss how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun's irradiance, creating 1- to 2-degree Celsuis cycles in temperatures on earth.

Sun spot activity has reached a 1,000-year high, said scientists affiliated with the Max Planck Institute in Gottingen, Germany, and the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich, Switzerland, in a 2004 report. More sun spots mean Earth will grow warmer; fewer mean it will turn colder. Solar radiation has increased by 0.05 percent per decade since the 1970s, concluded a NASA-funded study in 2003.

Odd that we didn't hear about those books or see their authors interviewed as part of MSM reports, since they do have a bearing on the subject. Oh well.

Since warming and cooling have been going on for millennia, it seems reasonable to assert that a cause other than modernity or industrialization or CO2 is to blame. The sun, unlike those things, is known to have a profound impact on the earth, has been around for a long time, and is at least as likely a cause.

But it can’t be, because Al Gore and the UN panel, along with the MSM and many other scientists have developed a “consensus.” All I can say is, in the years before Gallileo proved otherwise, there was almost a universal "consensus" that the earth was flat – in fact it became religious doctrine. Sound familiar?

In a way, the junk science associated with the current religious fervor about climate change is a good thing .. if it leads to energy independence, pollution control, alternative energy source development and environmental awareness. But it could also lead to things that will stunt the growth of rich and developing nations, increasing living costs for those of us in Industrialized nations and making the world’s poor even poorer -- all without any appreciable impact on climate.

Or, maybe naming Greenland “green” was just a joke, and this is the beginning of "catastrophic" climate change. History (and a lot of reasonable science) tells us it isn’t, but there’s a “consensus,” and that’s all that matters.