Climate Science: Noted scientists at a Chicago climate conference declare that global warming is not only dead, but that the planet faces a big chill for decades to come. What about those frozen wind turbines? It's not exactly Copenhagen or Kyoto, but the 700 scientists attending the fourth International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by the Heartland Institute, had some chilling news of their own in the most liberal sense.
"Global warming is over — at least for a few decades," Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told the gathering. "However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming, and a cause for greater concern."
Easterbrook and 74 other presenters at the conference said what everyone already knows, having shoveled record amounts of global warming off our sidewalks and driveways last winter. We don't need computer models to tell us, baby, it's getting cold outside. Of course, the doomsayers will claim that global warming causes global warming. Right.
"Rather than global warming at a rate of about 1 (degree) Fahrenheit per decade, records of past natural cycles indicate there may be global cooling for the first few decades of the 21st century to about 2030," Easterbrook said.
He spoke of natural cycles that have been occurring since the discovery of fire and mankind's first carbon emissions, long before the invention of the wheel and the SUV.
Easterbrook and the other scientists reported on sudden and natural climate fluctuations documented in the geologic record, all before 1945. Two big climate changes occurred in the past 15,000 years, and another 60 smaller changes in the last 5,000 years.
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Another presenter, James M. Taylor, an environmental policy expert and a fellow at the Heartland Institute, said that global cooling is happening now. He pointed to data provided by the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab showing snow records from the last 10 years exceeding the records set in the 1960s and 1970s.
Based on new analysis of ice cores from Greenland to Antarctica, Easterbrook said global temperatures rose and fell from 9 to 15 degrees in a single century or less, a natural phenomenon he called "astonishing." We see a bit of irony in an early February report that 11, 115-foot-tall wind turbines installed to provide power to 11 Minnesota towns were not functioning because they couldn't handle the record cold temperatures of a harsh winter.
Global cooling, it seems, stalled their fight against global warming.
They should be thawed out by now but Dan Geiger, electrical director for Chaska, Minn., said at the time the city had been receiving inquiries as to why its 160-kilowatt $300,000 turbine wasn't working.
He told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune it had not worked since mid-November. That's what we call a green energy no-spin zone.
Yes, it's warmer today than it was a century ago, but it was even warmer when Eric the Red settled on Greenland in 986.
The climate there supported the Viking way of life based upon cattle, hay, grain and herring for about 300 years, predating the Industrial Revolution.
By 1100, a colony of about 3,000 was thriving there. But then came the Little Ice Age, and by 1400, average temperatures had declined by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and the advancing glaciers doomed the Viking colony in Greenland. They were doomed by global cooling.
In testimony before Congress on May 6, Britain's Lord Monckton noted that "neither global mean surface temperature nor its rates of change in recent decades have been exceptional, unusual, inexplicable, or unprecedented."
He also advised: "There are many urgent priorities that need the attention of Congress, and it is not for me as an invited guest in your country to say what they are. Yet I can say this much: On any view, 'global warming' is not one of them." We just hope the polar bears don't catch their death of cold.
Does this mean that the FLAT EARTH SOCIETY gathering in Iceland next month has been cancelled? I see that linking head size to intelligence is also finally making a come back. Next stop, seances and ouija boards. Short skirts and the stock market, anyone?
If Climate Change meant lower taxes rather than greater energy costs and a painful transition to renewable resources, the right wing would champion the cause. Their opinions have nothing to do with science - they have trimmed their positions to whatever is easiest and will require the least government involvement.
Why do so many right wingers presume to argue with the scientific community? It takes a lot of nerve for this large group of pedestrians to argue with scientists that have spent their adult lives studying the relevant subjects.
Once again - political philosophy trumps science in the world view of our Republican brethren.
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