Global Warming: Relax and Enjoy

From the desk of Richard Rahn on Fri, 2006-11-17 09:10

Yes, the world is getting warmer, but the Earth does this roughly every 1,500 years, and we cannot stop it. The good news is humans and most other species tend to do better during the warm periods.

There is a wonderful new book, “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years,” by distinguished climate physicist Fred Singer and award-winning environmental economist Dennis Avery. The conclusion of their book in a nutshell is that, yes, the world is getting a bit warmer, but this is just the natural cycle. They provide overwhelming evidence this warming would occur with or without mankind increasing CO2 emissions or doing anything else. The good news is that if we realize we cannot stop global warming, and concentrate on constructively dealing with the problems it causes – which are all manageable at reasonable cost – and then enjoy the benefits, mankind will do just fine.

We have already had two cycles in recorded history; the Roman warming (200 B.C. to 600 A.D.) which was a very prosperous period, and the medieval warming (900 to 1300) during which farms were created in Greenland and Iceland. The modern warming period began about 1850, well before mankind was producing massive amounts of CO2.

As an economist, I have been a bit of skeptic about the various doomsday scenarios associated with global warming. It has been well known for decades that the Earth’s temperature is in a constant flux, and there have been many periods with both lower and higher temperatures. Despite the general warming trend since 1850, we have had cooler periods, notably from 1940 to 1978, when many leading scientists were warning us we were rapidly heading for a new ice age. I can still remember those doomsday scenarios being played out on TV specials at the time.

The reason for skepticism is the very selective use of data presented by the end-of-the world crowd, such as Al Gore and this month by former World Bank economist Nicholas Stern. The common solutions that always come from the crisis-of-the-day gang are for more government spending, higher taxes and more government control, with little or no discussion of the downside of bigger government and higher taxes.

U.S. taxpayers now pay about $4 billion per year to global change scientists and government bureaucrats associated with global warming. If global warming were found to be not much of a problem, what do you think would happen to the budgets, employment and advancement opportunities of those with a vested interest in global warming? (We have even had calls for the forcible silencing and imprisonment of global warming skeptics by some global warming doomsayers. Such calls and intimidation of those seeking honest answers can only lead to biased research or worse.)

Mr. Gore causes the emission of several hundred times the CO2 – by flying around the world in private jets, riding in limos, etc. – than the typical person does. Hence you would think if he really believed his scaremongering he would just stay home and give his speeches, etc., through teleconferencing and other electronic media. This would show greater commitment, but it would not be as much fun.

Responsible critics of the global warming scaremongers, such as Patrick Michaels (professor at the University of Virginia and Cato senior fellow), Bjorn Lomberg (director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center) and, of course, Messrs. Singer and Avery and many others, do not deny that global warming is occurring but only advocate that all current and historical data be examined and that there be a review as objective as possible of the costs and benefits of any expenditures to deal with climate change.

The Singer-Avery book is meticulously researched and footnoted (unlike many of the presentations from the scaremongers), and, as they note: “The 1,500-year cycle is not an unproven theory like the model-based predictions for the Greenhouse Theory. The 1,500 year climate cycle is real, based on a wide variety of physical evidence from around the globe.” (It comes from ice cores, sediment layers, isotopes, etc.)

The sun has far greater influence on climate than most people understand. The sun does not shine with a constant intensity, the Earth does not rotate around the sun in a constant orbit – during some periods it is more elliptical than others, and the Earth wobbles about its axis, all of which cause solar heating to vary. These effects swamp anything humans are likely to do to the climate.

During periods of global warming, some areas will become drier and less hospitable for agricultural, but just as many, or more, areas are likely to become wetter and more hospitable for food production (and living), such as Canada and Siberia. There is no evidence of species extinction during previous periods of global warming. Sea levels have slowly risen for hundreds of years, and the evidence is they will continue rising at the same slow and highly manageable rate. And, finally, the evidence is that severe storms are less frequent and intense during the warm than during the colder periods.

So relax and enjoy the few extra days of summer and the milder winters – like our Roman and Viking ancestors did.

 
This piece originally ran in The Washington Times.
 
 

I read your article with

Submitted by Vicks on Wed, 2006-11-22 14:41.

I read your article with interest, it may be true that the earth does warm up as in the past.
However the planet is dealing with a whole different set of toxic pollutions causd by human consumption over the past 100 years.It just doesn't disapear in the atmosphere, something has to give.
How does nature fight against these chemicals? As chemicals are toxic.
Just be aware of your own consumption.

@pet:

Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Mon, 2006-11-20 10:04.

The Sun, like all stars, consists of plasma and the core is a great deal hotter than the surface. Without the thermonuclear reactions in its core, the Sun would collapse; thus, towards the end of its life as it becomes more unstable, and starts using the remainder of its fuel, I assume its temperature would rise. However, I do not believe that this is a steady, incremental phenomenon. Incidentally, the epicentre of a nuclear explosion is hotter than the centre of the sun (the 1945 Tinity test some 10,000 times hotter).

hotter & hotter?

Submitted by pet85022 on Mon, 2006-11-20 08:55.

About 10 years ago I read in some earth science journal which after searching vainly through my old journals (mainly political science) I can not find but maybe someone else has read it or knows of it.
Essentially from what I remember it said, as the sun uses up its energy it gets hotter so that in 3 billion years ( I guess give or take a few hundred thousand one way or the other) this planet will be to hot to live on. In 9 billion years supernova time. I do not quite understand how the sun using up it's energy would get hotter and not colder.

Extremes...

Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Sat, 2006-11-18 09:43.

It often amazes me how people go to extremes, take for instance the comment that I am "still following the party line." Liberal democrats, including conservatives, are supposed to stand up for freedom of speech and thought, and political pluralism. However, there are those here on the blog who are just as bad as the Neo-Marxists when it comes to bashing everyone over the head with their opinions, twisting comments, and screaming "propaganda," "brainwashing" and the like.

 

Although environmentalists funded by the government have an interest in preserving their lucrative jobs, so to do those responsible for pollution, and it is no secret that oil and gas and heavy industrial concerns fund their own panel of scientists who claim the opposite of what the enviromentalists do.

The anti-Global Warming Movement

Submitted by Piedmont60 on Sat, 2006-11-18 09:05.

Has anyone written a thorough history of the anti-global warming movement? The information is readily available in news archives, but has anyone sat down and put the story together? I find it strange that global warming became a big issue overnight, or so it seems to me. I'm not suggesting any conspiracy, but it seems to me there are a lot of people who want to believe in global warming. This "problem" fills some sort of need, maybe psychological, maybe ideological, maybe both.

Give me a break

Submitted by lcmslutheran on Fri, 2006-11-17 14:54.

Evidently Kapitein Andre is still following the party line on the ozone hole. He has not read the latest reports that show that (*¡MIRABILE DICTU!*) the ozone hole is at a record size. This is, of course, brushed aside by the enviro-whacko's favorite dodge, that of "local effects". "Local effects" are translated as anything that doesn't fit the enviro-whacko's latest the-sky-is-falling whine. Such as the fact that the snowpack and the glaciers in the Himalayas are both increasing in size. The globull smarming, true believers simply pass this off as "local effects". These people are their own worst joke. If they would just go off in a corner somewhere and whimper among themselves no one would mind, however they are impacting our lives and production adversely with their junk science.

"The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other."
--Ronald Reagan

Can't Control The Weather......

Submitted by oiznop on Fri, 2006-11-17 14:03.

Once again, more proof that Global Warming (caused by humans) is a political myth created by leftist wack jobs like Al Gore, and that mother nature is in control....In a effort to inflict more government intrusion into your life....To tell you what vehicle to drive.....Give me an ozone action day, baby!....That's when old Oiz revs up the lawnmower!!!!!.......;-)........

Bravo!

Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Fri, 2006-11-17 10:29.

While I believe that global warming and cooling are natural phases in the Earth's climatic cycles, and that academic debate and action out of consensus not fear-mongering is the real solution, I am a staunch environmentalist. In addition, it is worthy to note that trees do not in fact exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen - rather they break even.

 

There can be no question that human activity is adversely impacting the planet's ecosystem and ourselves e.g. CFCs in the ozone layer, the loss of important forested regions in Latin America, Africa, and Indonesia, aggressive genetically modified plants, and pollutants and toxins in our food, water, air, and soil.

 

Certainly, we are making progress; in spite of Al Gore's speeches, our air is cleaner than it was in the 1950s-1970s. And it is bunker fuel (a combustible sludge used prior to oil) not nuclear waste that is our buried secret, seeping out of drums underground and on the ocean floor.

 

I believe not only in enacting government regulations and providing economic incentives to make the West as environmentally friendly and efficient (e.g. less wasteful) as possible, but in ensuring that China and India are prevented from industrializing as they are. Not only are there not enough natural resources to satiate China once it reaches its potential, but its pollution already makes the Love Canal seem a good place to raise a family.