The climate is always changing and we have been warming since the end of the last ice age.We’re still not back to the Medieval warm period levels yet. We took a serious setback during the Maunder Minimum and are slowly recovering. During the Medieval warm period the arctic was ice free – during the summers, at least. Polar bears survived just fine. The Chinese circumnavigated North and South America decades before Columbus blundered across the Atlantic and began enslaving the residents of the Caribbean. The sub-fleet of Captain (Commodore) Zhou Wen separated from the fleet of Admiral Zheng He and sailed north from the Caribbean to Greenland and then across the Arctic Ocean and through the Bearing Straits, then down past Japan and finally home to China, in 1423, a full 70 years before Columbus set sail. The fact few have heard of it smacks of Eurocentrism and racism. America’s public schools are now more of a political training regime than an educational service.
Instead of hand wringing and complaining over CO2, which has little to nothing to do with causing climate change, we should be working on ways to adapt to the new norms. After all, we’re not going to get China and Russia to be honest about emissions. Poor people the world over will tell us to go to hell if we try to restrict their economic growth. So instead of whining we need to get to work and deal with it.
First we have to actually predict what the changes are going to be. So far, the climate change alarmists have been shockingly wrong in their predictions. The validity of any scientific theory is the accuracy of the predictions you can make from said theory. To date, all the climate change alarmism theories have been extremely poor at predicting anything except the increase in funding to their cause when they yell.
Is the climate still warming? Dunno. Seems to have slowed or stopped and may be reversing itself. Phytoplankton have been enjoying the slightly higher CO2 levels and are exploding in numbers. Look to the sun first, however, as it is the best predictor of climate on earth. In fact, many Russian scientists (and Russian know quite a bit about snow and ice and cold) seem to believe we are heading for a significant cooling period.
Either way, the species has to adapt. After all, adapting is the one thing humans do best. We need to develop plans to move cities and populations if the oceans should rise significantly (unlikely in the lifetimes of our children or even their children). Oceans rose some several hundred feet at the end of the last ice age. We’re unlikely to see more than a slight rise in levels, still it’s good to have some sort of plan. We also need to develop better technology to deal with whatever the climate throws at us. We did this up to now by developing central heating and air conditioning and insulation. Simply painting the rooftops white in our cities, or making them green spaces with plants, can reflect or use a significant amount of solar energy and do much in lowering the heat sink effect of our cities.
Instead of whining and complaining about changes in human behavior which are bloody well NOT going to happen, we should be working on effective solutions to deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at us.
The climate is always changing and we have been warming since the end of the last ice age.We’re still not back to the Medieval warm period levels yet. We took a serious setback during the Maunder Minimum and are slowly recovering. During the Medieval warm period the arctic was ice free – during the summers, at least. Polar bears survived just fine. The Chinese circumnavigated North and South America decades before Columbus blundered across the Atlantic and began enslaving the residents of the Caribbean. The sub-fleet of Captain (Commodore) Zhou Wen separated from the fleet of Admiral Zheng He and sailed north from the Caribbean to Greenland and then across the Arctic Ocean and through the Bearing Straits, then down past Japan and finally home to China, in 1423, a full 70 years before Columbus set sail. The fact few have heard of it smacks of Eurocentrism and racism. America’s public schools are now more of a political training regime than an educational service.
Instead of hand wringing and complaining over CO2, which has little to nothing to do with causing climate change, we should be working on ways to adapt to the new norms. After all, we’re not going to get China and Russia to be honest about emissions. Poor people the world over will tell us to go to hell if we try to restrict their economic growth. So instead of whining we need to get to work and deal with it.
First we have to actually predict what the changes are going to be. So far, the climate change alarmists have been shockingly wrong in their predictions. The validity of any scientific theory is the accuracy of the predictions you can make from said theory. To date, all the climate change alarmism theories have been extremely poor at predicting anything except the increase in funding to their cause when they yell.
Is the climate still warming? Dunno. Seems to have slowed or stopped and may be reversing itself. Phytoplankton have been enjoying the slightly higher CO2 levels and are exploding in numbers. Look to the sun first, however, as it is the best predictor of climate on earth. In fact, many Russian scientists (and Russian know quite a bit about snow and ice and cold) seem to believe we are heading for a significant cooling period.
Either way, the species has to adapt. After all, adapting is the one thing humans do best. We need to develop plans to move cities and populations if the oceans should rise significantly (unlikely in the lifetimes of our children or even their children). Oceans rose some several hundred feet at the end of the last ice age. We’re unlikely to see more than a slight rise in levels, still it’s good to have some sort of plan. We also need to develop better technology to deal with whatever the climate throws at us. We did this up to now by developing central heating and air conditioning and insulation. Simply painting the rooftops white in our cities, or making them green spaces with plants, can reflect or use a significant amount of solar energy and do much in lowering the heat sink effect of our cities.
Instead of whining and complaining about changes in human behavior which are bloody well NOT going to happen, we should be working on effective solutions to deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at us.