They Blinded Us with Science
Published By: All Right Magazine on December 16, 2009
By FAIRFIELD “PINPOINT” EDWARDS
The hoity-toity word of the decade, since we are all suddenly taking stock of such things, was “hubris.” A favorite of the university set as the War on Terror made war upon the terrorists, it meant of course, in true Greek fashion, a pride that was also a tragic flaw. Can this not be used in describing the near panic regarding climate change? Is this science to be blindly followed?
As we make our Christmas plans (or nontraditional, nondescript, vague wintry plans) the would be World Congress, of which President Obama is but a single assenting voice, is debating the future of all human activity. Carbon is the enemy, and the enemy is us —literally. The human body itself is 18.5% carbon, and with each breath we exhale the dastardly gas. But enough about biology, what about the true science of global warming, geology?
Global warming is real, and it is happening. This should not come as a surprise. It is not even cause for alarm. Our response to global warming needs to be what it has always been — to adapt to our surroundings because we cannot control the climate. If this is to be doubted, consider the accuracy rate of any fun-loving, joke-mongering meteorologist in a typical five-day forecast. We have a complete understanding of neither the weather nor the climate.
Case in point is all the hullabaloo concerning “record-breaking temperatures.” Ironically the climate delegation in Copenhagen has declared softly that this “may be the warmest year on record.” Why all the uncertainty? There are only two weeks left in the year after all. For the sake of argument, however, let’s say that 2009 is the warmest year ever recorded. What does this tell us? Humans have been keeping records on such things since 1850, a long time ago, unless one considers that people who are alive today knew people who knew other people who lived then. In fact, Frank Buckles, the last living World War I veteran, may have even known someone directly who lived in 1850.
To put it in the right context, that number has to be compared with the age of the Earth. Unfortunately, no one knows that number. Borrowing from a popular hymn, we have a world without end that recycles even the oldest rocks and reforms them as the continents wander aimlessly amid the tectonic plates. The very best guess that U.S. Geologic Survey can put forth is the number 4.5 billion years, an awfully round number for such an important statistic.
However, let us assume that the number is set in stone. This must mean at least that the Earth’s surface temperatures had been constant until the scar of human activity began. Naturally the next question involves the age of man. The history books, which rely heavily on anthropology and archeology on these subjects, claim that the first hominids (ape-like men or men-like apes) appeared 3 to 5 million years ago.
We might expect the temperature to increase at the point, but the record shows otherwise. The Last Great Ice Age began, according to the USGS about 1million years ago, in what the agency describes as a “recent chapter in the Earth’s history.” Compare this to the century and a half of looking at a thermometer and writing down the result, and the veingloriousness of assuming human control of the climate gets put in its proper perspective. Also worth noting is evidence that exists of prior ice ages, indicating that the Earth heats and cools as part of a little understood natural cycle. The USGS states about this, “During the long course of Earth history, the climate has fluctuated, just as the general character of the Earth’s surface has changed.” Scientists have identified four major periods of glaciation (Nebraskan Kansan, Illinoisan, and Wisconsin), alternating with warm periods.
At the height of the last Ice Age, an estimated 1/3 of Earth was covered in ice, compared to 1/10 today. Ice caps at both ends of the world were naturally thicker and larger. Ice covered all of Canada and even reached as far as the southern end of Obama’s home state. Then it all changed. That is to say, the climate changed, again. 6 to 12 thousand years ago, global warming took place. The ice receded, and seas were on the rise. Lakes dried up, and some plants and various animal species died.
Was human activity the root cause? It is highly unlikely, even by the standards of the most alarmed of the global warming alarmists. Remember that the carbon footprint of our ancestors was barely even visible. They hunted carbon-breathing beasts for breakfast and hardly had the wherewithal to cut down a forest, no matter how beneficial it might have been. Humanity was a victim of his habitat, and not the other way around.
As a matter of fact, when the wooly mammoth, mastodon, dire wolf, and saber-toothed tiger no longer contributed to humanity’s daily caloric count, humans had to do what they must do now – adapt. We can build windmills in the Florida plains, but they will be islands under the new sea levels of the future. We can turn the deserts of New Mexico into solar powered wonders, until the climate changes (the Sahara was once a grassland).
Our ancestors discovered agriculture when big-game hunting was no longer an option. They traveled from Asia to the Americas as the first immigrants to the Western Hemisphere on board a land bridge made possible by global freezing. As a species we increased our productivity and raised our standard of living to meet the challenge of man versus nature. Again we must and will do the same, and it will not require a single carbon credit indulgence or climate reparations.
FAIRFIELD EDWARDS is a traditionalist by day and traditionalist by night who believes in the institutions and noble history of our nation. He is but a single champion of the righteous against the self-righteous and a champion of the wronged against those who seek to do wrong. He is the editor of www.allrightmagazine.com
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