Climate Change - It's A Good Thing!

o they teach kids folk tales like "Chicken Little" any more? Or fables like Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes?" In the pursuit of status and titles, basic life skills have been denigrated in favor of higher education and academic degrees.


Pundits, like Chicken Little, catastrophize, reciting all the prospective terrors of global warming, and blame mankind ... namely mankind in the developed countries ... and mainly the United States ... for causing the terrible cataclysm to come. Governments around the world have been worried into throwing billions of dollars into the urgent task of halting the spew of "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere ... namely carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, anyone who has the bad manners to question the "science" driving this hysteria is dismissed with a vehemence and viciousness similar to that heaped upon "Holocaust deniers."


Folk tales like Chicken Little and fables like The Emperor's New Clothes were traditionally passed on to yesteryear's children as a learning exercise; not merely as entertainment. Kids soon learned to expect the question, "Now, what's the moral of this story?" And, indeed, such stories always made a point. They were a practical and highly successful way of teaching children some fundamental life skills … the stuff we call common sense and emotional intelligence.


Unfortunately, in today's educationally snobbish culture, nothing counts but the utterances of a "professional." Common sense is disrespected. Understandably so, perhaps. After having paid big bucks for a college degree, it's difficult to accept that a high school dropout well grounded in basic life skills might actually have a better handle on life.


And so on to the new holocaust … "Global Warming."


Famine and Pestilence - Wars and Rumors of Wars


I was brought up in a God-fearing family, and was therefore well indoctrinated with the idea that humankind is so fundamentally sinful that God gets sufficiently angered now and then to decide to just erase everything and start over. Last time around, as the legend goes, he flooded the whole earth, drowning everyone and everything, except for what Noah saved in his ark. I also learned that rainbows appear as a sign of God's promise that he'll never again vent His rage in that way. Sweet! ... Except our Sunday school teachers hinted that the next time around it would be fire, instead of flood. Being thus indoctrinated, we God-fearing persons, who constitute the majority of the human population, are therefore predisposed to believe in the global warming doomsday hype … that our wanton material gluttony will prove our undoing, and we will die in the heat of the planet we destroyed.


We seem to like doomsday-speak. During my life it's been one doomsday scare after another.


First it was World War II, where civilization as we knew it was at risk of being taken over and destroyed by those hatefully atheistic Nazi Huns, sexually insane gooks, and nutty Fascist wops. As kids in Traverse City, Michigan, we were frightened almost to death by air raid sirens and black-outs. "In Traverse City, Michigan?" you ask. Yes; it was ridiculous. In the early 1940's, enemy bombers were not that range capable, and even if they were, why would they waste expensive ordnance on a backwater place like Traverse? The propagandists claimed that they would be using city lights as landmarks, and commercial radio stations as navigation aids along the way to the strategically important Soo Locks. The propaganda also claimed righteous indignation; that the allies were totally innocent and the axis powers were totally evil. And so, the world chose up sides, ganging up on each other in an adventure that ultimately killed some 72-million people as we kids walked along sidewalks chanting, "Step on a crack; break Hitler's back." or singing, "Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini bent his weenie - now it doesn't work!"


"The Russians Are Coming!"


Having not-so-neatly dispatched that calamity, next came the Communist hysteria. These wicked and subversive nut jobs, zombie-like disciples of a creepy Vladimir Lenin and the evil Joseph Stalin, were bent on infiltrating every aspect of American life, and eventually taking over the whole world.


That reached a crescendo with Senator Joe McCarthy's infamous "investigations." Many influential institutions and personalities were sucked into the vortex McCarthy created, including the FBI, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Catholic Church, the American Legion, the Kennedy family, and a young upcoming Richard Nixon.


A widely popular weekly television program during the mid-1950's called I Led Three Lives, which provided weekly, high-fictionalized episodes in the exciting, dangerous, and heroic life of Herbert Philbrick, an advertising executive who infiltrated the Communist Party as an undercover agent for the FBI, did much to promote McCarthy's cause with the general public. Eventually, anyone who dared doubt McCarty or question his witch-hunt was a risk of being fingered as a Communist sympathizer, "fellow traveler", or an outright Communist. After having destroyed the careers of many notables, McCarthy's rants about Communist infiltration in the highest offices of the government and the military … even accusing the Democratic Party of "twenty years of treason" … it became clear that the Senator's uncontrolled appetite for alcohol had evidently finally pickled his brain, and his colleagues finally voted to clip his wings.


But, not to worry … the next crisis was already at hand.


Mutually-Assured Destruction


Those damned Rosenberg's and their in-laws and friends had stolen our nuclear secrets and passed them on to "Uncle Joe" (Stalin). Those arch-evil Communists in the Soviet Union popped their first mushroom cloud, code-named "Joe 1," in late 1949, and the Cold War was on. As the McCarthy thing died, we began building bomb shelters in earnest, and us kids became unofficial members of the "Civil Air Patrol," constantly searching the skies for "Reds" (Russians in bombers). We just knew those evil, prisyka dancing vodka drinkers in the USSR were bent on taking over the whole world and converting it all to Communism.


The Cold War turned into an Arms Race, with each side scurrying to develop and manufacture ever more powerful nuclear devices. The A-bomb turned into the H-bomb, and even a Q-bomb was rumored … a small, but much more powerful device which somehow killed all the people without destroying their property. After twenty years of this madness, the doom sayers were ranting that we had developed enough nuclear explosive devices to destroy the planet, and were on the verge of doing so.

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
              - A. Einstein

However, most practical people realized that the Soviet Union already had a full plate and was probably not really interested in taking over the world any more, and perhaps never were. Furthermore, by this time both the US and USSR had settled in to a defense strategy called "MAD" … Mutually Assured Destruction … both having far more than enough firepower to wipe out the other on a moment's notice, making any "first strike" highly improbable, even with lunatics in charge of the buttons. Meanwhile, some scientists began to point out that the power of the world's combined nuclear arsenals were puny in comparison to nature's potential fury, which is occasionally unleashed as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions … catastrophes that do happen from time to time, yet life goes on.


In a characteristic display of bad judgment, the American people, in 1980, decided to replace a sitting President with a movie actor. As luck would have it, that turned out to be a good thing, since Ronald Reagan, in a refreshing display of common sense, decided to fight fire with fire in dealing with the Soviets. Taking the arms race to the next level, which became know as the Star Wars initiative … intercepting and blowing up Soviet missiles in space well before they could reach their targets … he essentially drove the USSR into bankruptcy in their frantic effort to keep up. By the end of his Presidency in 1989, the Soviet Union was crumbling, and the Cold War was over.


Ozone Depletion - NASA's Folly


What next? Oh, my God there's a gaping hole in the ozone layer! We're all going to go blind and die of skin cancer! Those mad scientists and greed-crazed corporate magnates at Frigidaire, DuPont, and General Motors, the inventors, makers and distributors of Freon … chlorofluorocarbons or CFC's; the stuff used in air conditioners and aerosol cans … were the primary villains here.


The real culprit turned out to be NASA. Struggling to preserve its budget as interest in space exploration waned and interest in environmental science waxed, NASA mistakenly interpreted some unexpected findings of its TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) program and exuberantly published the bogus results.


This new crisis came just in time. Environmentalists were giddy, and the doomsayers had something new to ring their hands over. All the hype led to the famous Montreal Protocol in 1987, an international agreement restricting the production and use of ozone-depleting chemicals, mainly CFC's.


But eventually more rational thinking in NASA evidently began to surface, with the space agency having the bad manners to begin hedging its bets … reporting that the hole in the ozone layer was,

"As usual, once the cat was out of the bag, the experts and doomsayers quietly crawled back into the woodwork."

on average, more or less constant and predictable, varying with the seasons. But they continued to defensively assert that it was a new phenomenon, and caused by hydrogen fluoride released into the stratosphere through the use of man-made CFC's. Other scientists found it curious that the hole appeared over the South Pole, whereas most emissions of man-made gases occur in the Northern Hemisphere. Worse yet, other climatologists pointed out Antarctica's Mt. Erebus spews some 150,000 tons of hydrogen fluoride directly into the Antarctican stratosphere each year, whereas the breakdown of man-made gases world-wide would theoretically account for only about 2,500 tons at most.


And so, the multi-billion dollar direct and indirect cost imposed upon world economies by bureaucrats who became believers in bad science and who bowed to zealous environmentalism, amounts to nothing less than a silly, wildly impulsive intention to play God … to take control of a natural planetary phenomenon far beyond our poor powers to do anything about. As usual, once the cat was out of the bag, the experts and doomsayers quietly crawled back into the woodwork. Isn't it funny … we don't hear much about the ozone hole anymore.


"C-yo-tu" and Kyoto


But wait … there's an all-new crisis, and just in time.


It's Climate Change (a.k.a. "Global Warming"). There will be terrible droughts, wildly inclement and destructive weather, the glaciers will all melt, flooding coastal regions and destroying places like New York, Los Angeles, the Netherlands, and what not.


This "silly science" dates back to French mathematician Joseph Fourier who, about 185-years ago, was able to calculate that the planet's average temperature seemed to be slowly increasing. He thought the temperature rise was probably due to the earth's atmosphere trapping solar radiation and reflecting it back to the earth. About seventy years later, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius theorized that this phenomenon was mainly the result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and he coined the phrase "greenhouse gas." In the 1950's, English amateur scientist G..S. Callendar took an interest in the field, resurrecting the carbon dioxide theory and insisting that the greenhouse effect was dramatically impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. For his efforts, he won a place in science with global warming now being known in scientific circles as the Callendar Effect.


That really got the ball rolling. As average temperatures continued to slowly increase, other scientists got involved, and with new and improved high-tech instrumentation and hardware, they discovered lucrative new fields for research. As usual, this also came as good news to environmentalists and bureaucrats. It wasn't long before a coalition of scientists, environmentalists and bureaucrats decided that a United Nations Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be a great idea. That led to yet another big environmental powwow, and another international agreement similar to the Montreal Protocol, this time called the Kyoto Protocol.


After all the hubbub, it turns out that CO₂ is a relatively minor member of the greenhouse gas family. The big Kahuna … the elephant in the room, as it were … is H₂O. That's right; water vapor. The air is full of it, as any practical person knows. Greenhouse gases actually comprise only a small part of the atmosphere, and of this small part, over three-quarters is usually water vapor.

"Scientists who pay attention to history understand that global temperatures have fluctuated rather cyclically over the eons, and to much more extreme levels that what’s being worried about today."

It now appears that Fourier's original conjecture was wrong. Scientists who pay attention to history understand that global temperatures have fluctuated cyclically over the eons, and to much more extreme levels that what's being worried about today. It further appears that these fluctuations coincide perfectly with solar activity … sun spots, in other words. One explanation is that the earth is continually showered with cosmic rays which promote cloud formation through ionization of the atmosphere. This shower is modulated by the solar wind and is significantly attenuated during periods of intense solar activity, The result is fewer, and less dense clouds, which permits more of the sun's energy to reach Earth's surface, and hence periods of greater warmth. This theory is rabidly refuted, of course, and others suggest different ways to explain the relationship between solar activity and the Earth's temperature. But, regardless of the mechanism, these facts seem clear: (1) global temperatures have varied rather widely for as far back as researchers can measure (millions of years), and (2) the variations are cyclical and correspond rather precisely with the activity of the four primary solar cycles.


These should be facts enough for anyone with a little common sense to conclude that the current hysteria is the outgrowth of hype generated by bad science and science aficionados in the environmentalist community. Yet, here again we have governments around the world squandering the fruits of our labor … billions of tax dollars … in a senseless and futile effort to control Mother Nature. The situation spirals far beyond reason as researches begin to chase after those dollars, mindful of the reality that the spigot will likely be turned off if they fail to deliver what bureaucrats are paying for … evidence that corroborates their bad judgment.


What makes this particular saga pathetically ironic is the knowledge that, as far back as recorded history goes, human progress, in terms of intellectual and economic advancement … "Good Times," in other words … have coincided with epochs of increasing global temperatures. As a matter of fact, Callendar's attitude was positive, thinking that this slight warming process would be a good thing. So, not only is there no valid reason to fear these natural warming cycles, there is legitimate historic reason for the human race to look forward to them … much like those of us in the non-tropical latitudes greet springtime's dispatch of a long, cold winter!


Goodbye Warming - Hello Meltdown!

As luck would have it, something did indeed melt down, but it wasn't the polar ice caps. It was the worldwide economy. Thank goodness! Now we have a new reason to wring our hands and rent our garments … and just in time! This crisis should be good for at least another two years, and some say ten. Kiss climate change goodbye.


As usual, government is charging ahead, hell bent on pointing fingers and solving the wrong problems. The current economic flame-out is not really the result of banking and mortgage misbehavior, but rather the legacy wrought by the past several decades of government's micromanagement and misadventure. That has arisen from the silly philosophy that government is responsible for solving all our problems, and that any problem can be resolved by passing a law. In 1854, Abraham Lincoln ... then a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois ... wrote this:

"The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, by themselves."

Perhaps the culprits have really been us. When I was a teenager in the 1950's, when bad things happened people often muttered, "There ought'a be a law!" Proving yet again the truism, "be careful what you wish for," we now have laws and government regulations for just about everything. Not only has that become very costly, it has destroyed American manufacturing, the only sector of our economy that actually creates value.


Lincoln also said ...

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

Indeed, like all the other crises mentioned above, the present economic "crisis" will pass ... not because of what the government does, but in spite of it.


Don't Worry - Be Happy!


This review of doomsdays that never came to pass should teach us to think for ourselves and respect our own common sense. Titles like "professional," "scientist," and phrases like "government report," do on lend information a godlike status of credibility. Human beings, regardless of educational or vocational achievement, always remain fallible, our works and utterances always subject to review and amendment. A knowledge of this is the beginning of wisdom.


The next time someone tries to worry you about the dire consequences of climate change, the economic melt-down, or whatever pseudo-crisis comes next, remember the tale of Chicken Little. The world is a complex place. Human minds are fallible and easily jump to conclusions based upon the evidence at hand. Beyond that point, they tend to interpret new evidence as needed to support what they already believe to be true. Thus is flawed thinking easily expanded and perpetuated


Human minds are also emotional machines. When you are criticised for not being a believer, remember the saga of The Emperor's New Clothes. Passions frequently overwhelm reason. Understanding this, and being capable of, and willing to, set facts apart from emotion, is the mark of emotional intelligence, and the hallmark of real leadership.


In the final analysis, all things do indeed seem to work together for good. Not only did none of these situations deliver the worst-case consequences projected, they rather quickly melted into history, with life going on, eventually bigger and better than ever before. History shows that over the long term, optimism is always appropriate.