Sunspots and a possible new ice age

Thomas Lifson
There is some serious evidence accumulating that we may be on the brink of not just global cooling, but an ice age. Sunspots are historically correlated with temperature on earth. During the Dalton Minimum, beginning in 1790, the number of sunspots was low, as the earth’s climate turned cold for a few decades. At http://www.spaceweather.com/ you can see live images of the sun taken from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory in space. Right now there is but one tiny sunspot.

Phil Chapman, geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco, writes in The Australian about the frightening prospect that this year’s ferocious winter and decline in average  temperature is the herald of serious cooling:

 

The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.

It didn’t happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.  [....]

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.

Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases.

 

Unlike Al Gore, I would never claim that the science is settled and that the data are all available. We need to watch the sunspot activity, and keep our fingers crossed that the world is not entering a new “little ice age.”

 

If we are entering a period of low sunspot activity and global cooling, then the changes demanded by Warmists, especially the conversion of crops to fuel use, would be catastrophic. But I doubt Al Gore’ Nobel Prize will ever be revoked. The fraud Rigoberta Menchu still has her Peace Prize, after all.

 

Hat tip: Bryan Demko

Posted at 12:54 PM | Email | Permalink

Earth First! (People Later)

By David Bueche

I drove by a Protestant church recently that had the following moral exhortation on their lawn marquee:

“Saving the world, one light-bulb at a time.”

 

Wow!  Talk about a test of faith.  Don’t think you’re going to slide through the gates of heaven without renouncing Satan’s bulbs — not a chance!

 

Later that week a Liberal friend asked me, “Do you believe in global warming?”  As I contemplated my answer I was struck with conflicting images – a Senate sub-committee, and a child asking about Santa.  To his credit, he stuck with me through my multi-part response.  To wit:

 

1. The world has been warming since approximately 1650 when it reached its latest low and almost dipped into a modern Ice Age.  This episode is well-recorded and notable for its misery as crop yields declined, economic activity contracted, and people were generally extremely cold.  On the lighter side…  you could ice skate on the Thames.  But all in all, not a good trend…
2. The world is now the same temperature as it was in 1000 A.D.  We’ve basically climbed out of the trough that we descended into for 650 years and now enjoy the same general climate as feudal rulers and Vikings a millennium ago.   (“Beautiful day wouldn’t you say Erik?  This is pillaging weather Gefhert – pass me that mace!”)
3. Theoretically, there is some incredibly complex formula that explains weather, temperature and climate.  We will probably never comprehend it in any great detail in the lifetimes of any of us. If ever.
4. Since we’ve only been in the carbon footprint game for a short period, there are obviously other big levers which control climate, (as evidenced by the repeated warming and cooling of the planet — the majority of which preceded humans entirely). 
5. If you were omniscient and could see this formula, there would probably be a legitimate factor in the equation representing human emission of CO² through industrial processes and agriculture.  It is quite possible that this factor is a very minor influence on the equation as a whole.
6. It is our influence on this possibly trivial climatic input that is being debated. 

I asked what brought all this to mind.  In short, why the long face?

 

What followed was the standard global warming litany: Crop failures, rising tides, malaria in Vermont, people dying of heatstroke during the endless summer, etc., etc., etc…

 

I countered each point with one of two arguments:

 

• This problem already exists and can be solved more efficiently by directly focusing on it than by attempting to manipulate the global climate – (For example, malaria can currently be eradicated for pennies on the dollar, and will never be a problem in Vermont)
• This “problem” is not really a problem at all.  It either doesn’t exist, or is the lesser of two possible outcomes. (For example, a warmer world will cause a slightly higher incidence in summer heatstroke, which will be completely negated by the decrease in winter deaths due to cold.  The modeling that’s been done, [for what its worth], actually shows an overall net decrease in mortality in the “warmer world” scenario due to the fact that humans adapt more readily to heat than cold).

At some point along the way I realized I was making him angry.  It wasn’t that I was being abrasive or disrespectful.  I was responding point by point to each of supposed global warming calamities.  “We can fix all this stuff now,” I said.  “No need to give up your SUV, no buildings underwater, no tribes of cannibals living in the burned out skeleton of Baby Gap.”  This should be good news, correct?

 

That’s where you’d be wrong.  The thing you need to realize is that all these supposed outcomes are a smokescreen.  Most global warming activists don’t really care about people being fed or preventing malaria.  If that’s what they were concerned about they would focus on that.  Trying to address world hunger by worrying about CO² levels is about as direct as trying to become a famous actor by waiting tables in a Hollywood restaurant, (actually that may be a little too pessimistic but you get the picture).

 

The ”science” of global warming is nothing more than a cover for their irrational emotional needs.  It’s religion for people who are too cool to go to church.  All that yearning, the need for something bigger, transcendent: Hey the planet’s heating up and I’ve been placed here to save it!

 

When Al Gore says, “The Earth has a fever,” no one calls him on his cartoon personification — as if the Earth has a temperature it prefers. 

 

Compare this to GW’s comment that Jesus Christ was his favorite philosopher – “Oh what a sad misguided fool.  He still believes in God.  And this is the guy who’s running our country?”

 

To borrow a phrase, (as I have liberally in this post), from the brilliant statistician and eco-philosopher, Bjorn Lomborg, visualize the people living on Earth 100 years from now.  Let’s imagine that they can reach back in time and speak to us, give us some feedback on the world we’ll be leaving them.  What do you think they’d ask us to focus on?  Where would they have us concentrate our scarce time and energy? 

 

A world in which hunger and AIDS have been eradicated or  a world where the sea level is 6 inches lower?

 

A world free of Jihad where everyone lives under some form of representative democracy, or a world that is 2.1 degrees cooler in the months between October and March?

 

A world with 10% more polar bear habitat or a world where even the poorest or the poor have clean water and a sanitary place to go to the bathroom?

 

These are our choices.  We can’t do everything.

 

And frankly, to hear people who are so wealthy that they’re clinically obese from excess food and leisure time yammering on about what kind of light-bulbs they use, while other people are literally starving to death…  It’s beyond bizarre.  It speaks to a frightening level of self-deception that seemingly intelligent folks engage in en masse.

 

Which brings us back to the church I saw.  Is this what passes for morality today?  Is this what constitutes a courageous stand?  Is this honestly the best we can do? 

 

Do you know how much the sea level rose since 1850?  1 foot. 

 

And what did we do?  How did we handle this catastrophe?  Well, actually, we didn’t notice that it was happening — that’s how horrible the climate change we experienced was.

 

Do you know how much the UN’s IPCC panel predicts the sea level will rise by 2100?  One foot.* It may be the same nightmare we went through last time. Or maybe half the nightmare.

 

So next time you fret about whether your car is Gore compliant or if you’re protecting your precious Gaia by buying carbon offsets for your private jet, think for a minute about how it would look to our friends a hundred years hence, or better yet, to a little kid in present-day Africa or Asia who’s starving to death.

 

Maybe we ought to return to an elemental truth the folks a hundred years in our past knew clearly and without reservation. 

 

People come first – the Earth can take care of itself.

 

* Projected sea level rise in 21^st century:

Source – UN IPCC Report (4th Assessment – 2007)

Graphic (from WikiPedia)

This shows different ranges of sea level rise predicted using 6 different scenarios, (coolest to warmest).  It’s worth noting that the “high-end” scenarios are probably unrealistic in that they factor in “business as usual” with no switch to alternative fuels, conservation efforts as a result of price, etc., (many of which are actually happening now due to the increase in the price of oil).  If we take the mean of each range we get, (coolest to warmest):

 

• 11 inches
• 13 inches
• 12.5 inches
• 13.5 inches
• 14.5 inches
• 16.5 inches

 

If we drop the high and low estimates as outliers and take the mean of the means of the remaining 4 estimates we get -

 

• 13.4 inches

 

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

A New ‘Green’ Body Count Begins

A New ‘Green’ Body Count Begins

By Steven Milloy
Fox News | 4/22/2008

Food riots caused by rising food prices have erupted around the world. Five people died in uprisings in Haiti, perhaps the first of many casualties to come from the fad of being “green.”

Food riots also broke out in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Ethiopia. The military is being deployed in Pakistan and Thailand to protect fields and warehouses. Higher energy costs and policies promoting the use of biofuels such as ethanol are being blamed. “When millions of people are going hungry, it’s a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels,” an Indian government official told the Wall Street Journal. Turkey’s finance minister labeled the use of biofuels as “appalling,” according to the paper.

Biofuels have turned out to be a lose-lose-lose proposition. Once touted by the greens and the biofuel industry as being able to reduce the demand for oil and lower greenhouse gas emissions, biofuels have accomplished neither goal and have no prospect for accomplishing either in the foreseeable future.

The latest research shows that biofuels actually increase greenhouse gas emissions on a total lifecycle basis. Add in that taxpayer-subsidized diversion of food crops and food crop acreage to fuel production has contributed to higher food prices and reduced food supply, and biofuels turn out to be nothing less than a public policy disaster.

 

The situation is not likely to get any better any time soon, as cutting the farm subsidies and tariffs on sugar cane-based ethanol imports that have fueled the ethanol craze seems to be yet another third rail of U.S. politics.

Biofuel proponents hope the reliance on food crops to produce biofuels is temporary, and they point to a future where non-food biomass (such as corn stalks and grasses) is used to produce so-called cellulosic ethanol.

But in addition to the fact that the technology for producing cellulosic ethanol on a cost-effective basis is nowhere near ready for prime time, the greenhouse gas footprint of cellulosic ethanol likely will be far worse than that of corn-based ethanol.

It’s one thing to transport relatively compact corn kernels to be processed into ethanol; it’s quite another to transport bulky biomass. The bulk problem would require a multitude of cellulosic ethanol plants to be built around the country — a project that could be quite costly and difficult to locate given the phenomenon of NIMBY-ism and the problem of plant emissions making it more difficult for states to comply with federal air quality standards.

States that don’t meet those standards don’t get their much-needed federal highway funds. Food riots are only the tip of the green iceberg. We might also expect energy riots to erupt one day.

The world has an ever-growing population that needs more and more energy, but the greens are doing everything they can to constrict the world’s energy supply.

As the Sierra Club campaigns to shut down our coal-fired electricity capabilities, the Natural Resources Defense Council campaigns to prevent nuclear power from taking its place. The demise of coal-fired power and the blockage of increased nuclear power will increase the demand for supply constraints on, and the prices for, natural gas.

But then again, environmental advocacy group Earth First perhaps is helping to alleviate the looming natural gas crisis by campaigning against power plants that use the fuel. In a recent campaign against a South Florida power plant, an Earth First campaigner stated that the environment ought not be threatened “so that people can fuel their greedy energy desires.” “Just say ‘no’ to electricity,” seems to be the bottom line of eco-think.

Even wind power is becoming more and more politically incorrect. Environmentalist-friendly Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley this week announced that wind farms will not be allowed on state lands because they are eyesores.

Considering eco-activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-standing opposition to a wind farm off the coast of his family’s Hyannis Port, Mass., compound as well as environmentalist concerns that wind farms kill wild birds, it seems that the future of wind power is uncertain.

The environmentalist effort to tie our energy policy knots already is producing results. The availability of electricity in the Washington, D.C., area is so fragile that Maryland officials already are planning for summertime rolling blackouts starting in 2011.

In California, officials are so concerned that a recent state legislative proposal would have provided local utilities the power to control thermostats in new homes and businesses. Although this effort failed, it’s not that hard to imagine that, one day, all homes will have their electrical use controlled by local utilities — no doubt run by your local green energy czars.

Millions in the developing world have died and continue to do so from the greens’ campaign against pesticides such as DDT. Nothing less should be expected from their new campaign that threatens global food and energy production.

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Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams.