Posted on 05/21/2009 7:08:57 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Did anybody else notice that the phrase “global warming” has largely disappeared from public discourse? All but the slowest enviromentalists have dropped that phrase because for the last three years the globe as been cooling off. So, the new phrase is “climate change.”
As a public service, I’d like to explain this phrase by reference to a pair of coal-fired furnaces, one in Birmingham, Alabama, the other one in Baltimore, Maryland. My mother grew up in Birmingham almost a century ago, in a rambling, wood-framed house on Warsaw Street. It had sleeping porches for summer heat, and a coal furnace for winter cold.
There was no thermostat in the house. When you wanted more heat, you went to the basement and stoked the fire. When you wanted less heat, you went down and banked the fire. Either way, the temperature was roughly higher, or lower, after a serious delay.
A full century ago, my father grew up in a row house on South Broadway in Baltimore. It, too, had a coal furnace. The third floor was always the coldest place in the house. I remember that cols from brief but impressive experiences.
The only significant source of heat for this medium-sized planet we live on, is the Sun. There is a small amount of vestigial heat in the Earth itself from its formation, millions of years ago, but without the daily input from the Sun, the Earth would turn into a popsicle with no living things on it, within a matter of days.
Now, the Sun is a bit more powerful than a coal furnace. The Sun is a continuously operating thermonuclear bomb. But there are some similarities. There is no thermostat on Earth that controls heat from the Sun. And there’s no way to go down to the basement and even crudely adjust its output.
Galileo with his new telescope was the first human to identify and track spots on the Sun. Now, we know that when the spots are more active, the radiant heat of the Sun is higher. Right now, the spots are at a 17-year low, as I recall. So, that’s the reason the Earth is now cooling.
There is also evidence from other planets, especially on Mars where the rovers have outlived their planned lives by years, of both global warming and global cooling similar to that on Earth in the past. And there is the minor point that coal-fired generating plants, SUVs, plastic industries, and humans are relatively scarce on Mars.
Bottom line: climate change is normal. It’s been going on for several hundred years. Those who claim that “we have to do something about climate change” have to do two things before anyone should take them seriously. First, they should explain what kind of thermostat they will put on the wall on Earth, to hold temperatures constant within a few degrees, like most modern houses have. Then, they have to explain how that control mechanism will actually affect the radiant heat output on the Sun.
While we are on the subject of Sun heat on Earth, it is true that the warmest period in written history happened around 1100 AD. That’s why Greenland is called Greenland. The Vikings had successful settlements and farms on Greenland, then. But the Earth cooled, the Viking settlements failed. Is it necessary to point out the shameless lack of coal-fired electrical plants and SUVs back in 1100 AD?
There are many situations in which some people, and some organizations who stand up and shout, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” The necessary responses to that should be, “What is your evidence?” And then, “Exactly what do you propose to do about it?” The global warming crowd now fails the answers to both of those questions. The warming has stopped, and reversed. And even if it hadn’t, nothing they propose would have the slightest effect on the output of the Sun.
Mark Twain addressed the subject a century ago. “Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.” But worse than that are people who claim to be doing something that cannot work, and will further damage the American economy.
Common sense is always useful, but seldom used. Consider the Sun as a giant, coal furnace in a sky. Now you have more knowledge about climate change than many environmentalists and an unfortunately large number of Congressmen possess.
- 30 -
About the Author: John Armor practiced law in the Supreme Court for 33 years. He now lives on the Eastern Continental Divide in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
- 30 -
John / Billybob
I propose a new phrase, then!
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alteration...CACA, for short (and because it is!)
And when the climate started cooling in the “Little Ice Age”, starting in the 1300’s, those who adapted best to it were accused of causing it and burned as witches.
Not even the carbon output from the witch burnings could increase the greenhouse effect and warm the earth back up until the Sun was good and ready to get sunspot-tacular again.
Actually, it's been going on for several hundred MILLION years.
I know this. You know this. Many of the constantly fewer remaining rational voters know this. Why then, my good man, is that part of the world sometimes called "Western Civilization," hell-bent on spending hundreds of trillions in precious capital, (financial, human, and material) a patrimony that has taken centuries to amass, and is responsible for our advanced way of life, on something that clearly does not exist: i.e., anthropogenic climate change?
One more question. Why has not one elected leader stood up and explained this? Newt Gingrich, who surely knows better, is a Global Warming man. John McCain, who presumably passed Thermodynamics 101 at the US Naval Academy, is a Global Warming man. The list of people who should know better, yet who pay public homage to "Global Warming," is drearily endless. How do you explain it?
Obviously what the Left has done is conflate "Pollution," and "Climate Change," or whatever they are calling it this week, and mixed them inextricably in the dumbed-down minds of masses.
"Pollution," is bad, OK? Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with global climate changes, which have occurred on a regular basis since before there were people on the Earth, unto the present day.
How I prayed for GW to fireside chat this! Is it too late for some Republican stalwart yet-to-be-named to powerpoint the Mihailovitch Cycle, Sunspots, Temperature Data? Can enough voters understand that they are being had? Who will call,
The Earth has actually been cooling off for at least 7yrs not 3:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Temp_Blend.jpg
Environmentalism is nothing but a Communist ruse to take control.
My error. Already sent the correction to my publishers.
Thanks,
John
It’s an honor to be of service.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
