CLIMATE: Alarmists ignore science

For decades we’ve been told by the government-funded scientists that man-caused global warming is real and presents a serious threat to civilization. Anyone who doesn’t buy into this conclusion is shamed as a “science denier.”

However, our climate history shows us that whatever warming we might be experiencing now is entirely natural and not unusual.

Over the last 400,000 years there have been four ice ages, each lasting about 75,000 years and separated by inter-glacial warm periods that normally last between 10,000 and 15,000 years. We are currently living in the Holocene Interglacial, which, according to NOAA, began about 11,500 years ago. Each of the four previous inter-glacial warm periods were significantly warmer than our current temperature.

According to geologist Gregory Wrightstone in his book, “Inconvenient Facts,” it was warmer than right now for 6,100 of the last 10,000 years. And during the previous interglacial, global average temperatures climbed to more than 14 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today. But Greenland didn’t melt, and the polar bears didn’t go extinct!

As to the theory that increasing CO2 leads to runaway warming, the Earth’s climate record differs from the computer model projections. The modern increase in CO2 began with World War II, and yet the four decades that followed (1939-1980) saw a continuous average temperature decline (cooling trend, see: HadCRUT4, 2017). And, during the 17-year period with modern history’s steepest rise in carbon levels (1998-2015), temperatures actually leveled off.

But CO2 is in fact not a dangerous pollutant, and increased levels of CO2 means fewer droughts, faster tree growth and greater global food production.

JIM BALLOU

Hayden