Earth Day and Global Warming

I just came across an Earth Day debate asking if global warming is a hoax or not. This question misses the point. No, global warming is not a hoax; it is a cyclical occurrence that has happened and will happen again. What is a hoax is the Al Gore and his ilk’s over-reaction to it, filled with wild tales of floods, doom and destruction.

I continue to wade through the mountains of science and junk science on the subject and all to often it those who want to propagate the doom and despair side of this argument that go off half-cocked based on convenient slivers of science that prop up their side of the argument that global warming is caused by man-made carbon emissions.

Counter science is rife with examples that warming models and carbon emission studies don’t go nearly deep enough into their research to draw the conclusions that they often site as pure fact. They base their claims of global destruction on this partial science and the lazy media refuses to do their own research and choose to simply parrot these stories as based on undeniable fact and to take pot shots at those who don’t buy in as “flat-earthers” or scientific heretics.

For those who aren’t into computer modeling, hockey stick curves or satellite studies let me put those in the most basic terms; if modern man and his carbon emissions are the root cause of global warming, then what caused the Earth’s last significant warming cycle which stretched from the 10th to 13th century?

Known as the “medieval warm period or more commonly the Little Climatic Optimum, when the Earth’s average temperature was 1 to 3 degrees higher than it is today,” according to J R Dunn, writing for the American Thinker.

While Gore gets wild-eyed and preachy talking about melting ice caps, flooding cities, famines and ruination, the facts of the Little Climatic Optimum (LCO) run in stark contrast.

As Dunn points out, “areas in the Midlands and Scotland that cannot grow crops today were regularly farmed. England became know for it’s wine exports. The average height of Britons around A.D. 1000 was close to six feet, thanks to good nutrition.”

While global warming “scientists” express concerns over lost species and the rise of disease, Dunn’s research points out that, “famine and it’s partner plague—appears to have taken a hike for several centuries. We have records of only a handful of famines during the LCO, and few mass outbreaks of disease.”

The LCO also gave rise to what Dunn labels the Agricultural Revolution. “Mild temperatures eased land clearing and lengthened growing seasons. More certain harvests encouraged experimentation among farmers involving field rotation, novel implements, and new crops.”

So what was it that caused this warming period? The obvious answer is the Earth’s only real source of warmth, the Sun.

So where does this leave us in today’s global warming debate? With steady torrent of half-science, alarmism, the bandwagon jumping corporate “greening” and mainstream media pandering many people are being turned off to even common sense environmentalism.

By continuing to over-play their hand the enviro-wingnuts like Gore may actually be doing more harm than good. While the chattering about gloom and doom global warming continues to grow to a full-throated cacophony recent studies show that the reaction of the average person trying to “do something” about global warming is negligible. This repetitive din has become so pervasive that it’s actually reached the point of turning people off to the process.

If the message didn’t have an “end of the world as we know it” quality and was one of common sense conservation, recycling and reuse, most Americans would be more likely to buy into the process. You don’t have to give up your car, wipe your backside with leaves or move into a cave to be a good steward of the Earth’s resources.

Corporations don’t have to expend millions of dollars to tell us how “green” they are, they could start by reducing packaging, developing products that don’t spend centuries breaking down in landfills, reduce corporate meeting travel by utilizing technology and streamlining supply chains to cut down on the impact of transporting products.

This isn’t brain surgery or global climate change science; it’s just simple common sense.