I Was Right – Winter is Coming…but, thankfully, maybe not as fast…

Back in September I wrote the article (see below) titled “Winter is Coming.”  Here we are, four months later, and today a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience, “Determining the natural length of the current interglacial,”  is being published.

According to a post in the New York Times, by Andrew Revkin, the research, coming out of the University College, London, “examined similarities between the current warm interval between ice ages and a particular point, around 780,000 years ago, during a past warm period known as Marine Isotope Stage 19. Using a variety of methods, the authors conclude that the onset of a new ice age would likely begin about 1,500 years from now, if the concentration of carbon dioxide was back below the levels produced since the Industrial Revolution.”

And so, the next big sideshow debate on climate change begins – which is better – global warming, or global cooling? If you reduce CO2, will that result in the freezing to death/starvation of our great, great, great……grandchildren? Inquiring minds, like mine, want to know.

And this must surely be another sore point for my local nemesis, Ms. Julie D. Johnston (with a “t”), who wrote on her blog today “Scientists as Enemies? Sometimes!” – “Physics, schmysics. What about the humans in the equation? What about the kids? What about their future? Why would we not employ the precautionary principle if there is any risk whatsoever?”

Yes, indeed, for the sake of our great, great….grandchildren, if an Ice Age is coming with certainty (as opposed to a small risk), sometime in the next 1500 years, wouldn’t we want to invoke the Precautionary Principle and err on the side of warmth?

I’m just asking.

 

Here’s my Islands Independent article:

Winter is Coming

12,000 years ago there was a mile of ice over Salt Spring. Since then the planet has warmed, and cooled, and warmed and cooled, many times. Some warm periods were warmer than today (Medieval Warm Period) and some cool periods were frigid (Little Ice Age). And, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, another ice age is certainly in the planet’s near future. For all you Game of Thrones fans out there, winter is indeed coming…again.

However, whether man made CO2 is actually responsible for a good part of the warming we have seen since 1950 (the earliest date which could coincide with manmade CO2 effects), is still a question, for we are now far past the early and illustrious Algorian days of scientific “consensus” on the matter. “Global warming” has given way to “climate change.” Over the past decade average temperatures appears to have slightly declined, bewildering and scaring the bejesus out of some scientists making grant applications, prompting them to actually “hide the decline.”

Ever notice how every computer prediction of global warming, from warming enthusiasts, shows smooth upward curves in temperature, not declines, or fluctuations? Why then, if CO2 has continued to rise, has our temperature not followed suit like it’s supposed to? Could it be that the computer models are deficient in raw data input? Could it be the myriad of factors that affect this world’s climate (water vapour, sunspot activity, cosmic rays, galactic cycles, the Pacific Decadal, North Atlantic and Arctic oscillations, El Nino, winds, ocean currents, variations in solar radiation, deviations in the Earth’s orbit, mountain-building and continental drift, volcanoes, etc.) are vastly more complex than computer programmers can possibly adjust for?

I don’t know about you, but a long time ago I stopped being puzzled why weathermen can’t even successfully predict next week’s local weather accurately….its just too damned complex.

Over the past few years governments have bowed to the political pressure of environmentalists concerned over greenhouse gasses and they’ve passed new regulations and taxes aimed at reducing CO2 emissions.

However, when it comes to the facts of proposals for those reductions (e.g. Kyoto, Copenhagen, etc.) the political/environmental machinations over CO2 are shown to be nothing more than a surrealistic smoke and mirrors show.

I want to make it clear, I am opposed to pollution, always have been, and always will be. However, CO2 is not a pollutant. Far from it. Without it, plants would die and stop producing the oxygen you and I so appreciate with every breath we take.

But, I have some really bad news for those of you who believe CO2 is driving global temperatures substantially higher and that you can do something about it…I hope you’re sitting down. In fact, you may want to check your blood pressure and/or swallow an Ativan, because here’s the reality you don’t want to hear – it doesn’t matter what you do, say, scream about, protest or write, it makes no difference whether you’ve switched to a hybrid, electric or solar car, or, whether you’ve become a vegetarian, decided not to have anymore CO2 pollutin’ kids or dogs, or reduced your carbon footprint to that of a hummingbird – the inconvenient truth is man made CO2 is going to double in the next 30 years and any local attempts to reduce carbon output are actually nothing more than futile, feel-good attempts to assuage the personal guilt associated with participating in a carbon based lifestyle. Ouch.

So, why are levels going to double in 30 years? China and India are the prime drivers in the CO2 increases, along with the rest of the developing world. Everyone wants the lifestyle we have, including, for starters, clean water, enough food, sanitation and hot and cold running water. And why shouldn’t they want what we consider basic modern essentials? If I woke up tomorrow and there was no hot water for a shower, you can be sure, without my wife’s prompting, I would be figuring a way to get it back, and quickly.

For those who truly believe carbon lifestyles on the islands are destroying the planet, you may want to reduce your guilt levels and footprints at the same time by considering stepping up your self-sacrifices by moving to an apartment in a high rise building in a city, following the UN’s Agenda 21 protocol for the urbanization of the planet.

Finally, when (a) any Anthropogenic Global Warmist can show me how changing our Canadian, American and European CO2 lifestyles will actually make a significant difference in their manipulated, exaggerated, fear mongering, child scaring, doomsday scenarios, or, (b) when cherry-picked computer modeling of skewed temperature proxy data can accurately predict climate changes, for even a decade, I will reconsider what currently appears to me to be nothing more than unscientific, religious and political dogma.  Until then, I plan to continue showering in the mornings, keep driving to work in my gas dependent automobile, buy food from here, there and everywhere, fight carbon taxation, and keep wondering how we’re all going to stay warm, without carbon, when winter inevitably comes.