You Say Warming, I say Cooling

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. The resulting famines could be catastrophic: “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

Thanks to son John for sending me the 1975 Newsweek story excerpted above on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels.

Yet the current hysteria about global warming sounds ominously similar.

In 1997, H. Sterling Burnett, an environmental policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis, wrote an analysis called Myths of Global Warming. Here are some findings.

Myth #1: Scientists Agree the Earth Is Warming. While ground-level temperature measurements suggest the earth has warmed between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees Celsius since 1850, global satellite data, the most reliable of climate measurements, show no evidence of warming during the past 18 years.

Myth #2: Humans Are Causing Global Warming. The scientific experts most directly concerned with climate conditions reject the theory by a wide margin. A Gallup poll found that only 17 percent of the members of the Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Society think that the warming of the 20th century has been a result of greenhouse gas emissions.

Myth #3: The Government Must Act Now to Halt Global Warming. The belief underlying this myth is that the consequences of near-term inaction could be catastrophic. However, a 1995 analysis by proponents of global warming theory concluded that the world's governments can wait up to 25 years to take action with no appreciable negative effect on the environment.

Myth # 4: Human-Caused Global Warming Will Cause Cataclysmic Environmental Problems. Reputable scientists, including those working on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reject these beliefs. For example, sea levels are rising around the globe (natural between ice ages) though sea levels have risen more than 300 feet over the last 18,000 years - far predating any possible human impact. The current rate of increase is slower than the average rate over the 18,000-year period.

As Algore promotes his global-warming movie, College Republicans ridicule the movie with Global Warming Beach Parties. Freeze out cataclysmic environmental scare tactics with a little humor. The Oklahoma University College Republicans gave out free snow cones to students for an event they called "Global Cooling Day." Stage an event like this one to grab the attention of your campus and raise awareness on the real facts of the global warming phenomenon. Engage with students and debunk some of the myths and cool the hyperbole surrounding the issue. The facts are on your side.

Meanwhile the Democratic National Committee reports: The College Republicans actions demonstrate the misplaced priorities and short-sightedness of the future of the Republican Party. As College Democrats continue to fight for issues that young Americans care about like an affordable college education, pot legalization and sociable medicine, Republicans continue to push their out of touch agenda. The College Republicans' ignorance toward the seriousness of global warming and climate change shows a Party more focused on partying than talking seriously about the issues facing young people across America.

Party on kids!!

I’ll be off for a few days playing in a bridge tourney. Fill up the comments. By the way, I hope you voted against the children of illegal aliens babysitting bill, also known as the Meathead pre-school bill.