Good To Be Warm

This is a reprint from an opinion column I wrote under the heading of "Local Voices" in the Oroville Mercury, dated Oct. 27, 2006. This is the first of a series I will produce on the subject here in my blog. I have purposely stayed away from politics for the most part but must now start to push into that arena. God be with us!

The recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, highlights the efforts of Al Gore to inform the public about the causes of global warming and its looming effects. Even liberal scholars have trouble with some of the conclusions, primarily with Antarctic core sample changes and the relationship of CO2 emissions to invasive plant species. These things are minor compared to the historical record misread and the evidence of the undeniable good that flows from this warming. The primary conclusion that Mr. Gore would have you take away from his propaganda is that America should give up fossil fuels, cars, and air conditioning.

Another recent film, The Day After Tomorrow, depicts a scientist trying to save the world from catastrophic temperature change, brought on by burning fossil fuels, another wrongly asserted conclusion, and is no more realistic than, The Planet of the Apes.

Here are some incontrovertible facts you should consider when liberal politicians and Hollywood elites spew out their polluted “hot air” from a lack of historical perspective.
There is no question that the Earth has warmed over the last 150 years. This is not a dangerous trend caused by human-emitted CO2. Virtually all of the Earth’s current warming occurred before 1940, and CO2 emissions have soared since then and temperatures aren’t significantly higher. The Antarctic ice cores say CO2 and temperatures have tracked closely together over the past 400,000 years. But CO2 changes have lagged behind the temperature changes by 200-800 years. More CO2 hasn’t produced higher temperatures; higher temperatures have produced more CO2. Greenhouse theory suggests that the trapped CO2 will warm the atmosphere and radiate down to warm Earth. That is not happening according to satellite data that confirms the atmosphere is warming more slowly than the earth, at 1 degree C per 300 years. Under the same theory the polar regions should warm first, but 21 Antarctic surface stations have recorded declines since 1979. Is an Ice Age coming?

There is new but already-convincing evidence of an unstoppable, moderate, solar-driven 1500-year climate cycle. This cycle is occurring due to very small variations in solar activity that we can now measure with satellite instruments, and measure chronologically through carbon and beryllium isotopes in the ice cores. Historical documents indicate there was a Roman era warming (200BC-600 AD) and a Medieval warming (950 -1300 AD) and that it was colder with more storms in the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age (1300-1850).

Wine grape vines are one of humanity’s most accurate and sensitive indications of temperature. The Romans grew wine grapes in Britain in the first century near the end of a warm period. There was another growing period where the British tax records of 1068 AD, for instance, show 50 vineyards. Britain essentially has not been able to produce any since the Little Ice Age.

12,800 years ago, Stone Age hunters walked to America across the “Bering Sea” with, cold, dry feet. There was no wine to welcome them, but thank God, wine grapes grow in Oroville today. Here, Here.