The earth is four plus billion years old. In that time it has experienced a constant change in climate, magnetic poles, shifting tectonic plates, life forms that rise and then become extinct, and civilizations that, like lifeforms, rise and fall. Some of those civilizations left little to no trace of themselves, while the animals and plants at least left fossil remains to tell us something about their existence. Some of the civilizations perished due to drought, others to plague, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and other natural disasters. Then there was war, conquest and migration from outside the civilization forcing the original inhabitants out. Sometimes a few survivors of those civilizations moved to other places on the earth via further migration and began again. Other times they just became part of the earth’s unknown history.
Climate change activists claim the use of fossil fuels and other bad environmental habits are killing the environment. They say Greenhouse gases are sealing in heat and the rise in the overall temperature of the earth will eventually kill off food supplies because of the reduction in oxygen levels in the oceans. But first the ice at the North and South Poles will melt flooding the costal cities of all nations and bringing disaster upon us. We are doomed, they cry at the tops of their voices from every pedestal of public speech, shouting down their distractors with ad hominem exclamations of derision.
In the 1920’s some scientists pronounced the earth was warming and we had less than a decade to save mankind. Others said no, it was just part of the earth’s cycle of warming and cooling and the action we should be taking was developing adjustments for the change of temperatures and what that would mean for various regions of the earth.
Then, in the 1960’s some scientists asserted that we were headed for another ice age which would bring back glaciers. Other scientists observed that it would take tens of thousands of years for glaciers to form and that if the population made sufficient preparations even an ice age could be endured. It was not, the end of the earth or the end of mankind.
Today’s climate “experts” tell us we have less than twelve years before the ice melts and the seas flood the coastal plains. Our politicians have picked up on that prediction and are insisting upon the use of emergency powers to avert the end of mankind. Emergency powers, of course are just another way of saying “authoritarian governmental directives,” aka dictatorial power, over anything that might touch climate, like the rationing of water, fuel, electricity, and the other basic commodities of life as we know it. Yet, if we truly must fear for our lives and livelihoods why did former President Obama just spend more than twenty-five million dollars on a beachfront property in Martha’s Vineyard and another on the island of Oahu in Hawaii? He is a major proponent of climate change activism and has asserted that government must be granted the powers to regulate climate influencers as identified by the climate change scientists.
Re the ice melting: some of us remain a little confused. According to the science books I consulted, less than five percent of the glaciers remained when man discovered fossil fuels. What happened to the other ninety-five percent? The ice in Antartica, according to NASA, is increasing at a rate of one percent per decade. While in the past decade the ice loss of the North Pole Ice Pack has been averaging less than in previous years. This doesn’t sound like what the activists are telling us. In fact it is just the opposite. BTW did you know they didn’t start keeping ice pack data until 1979. Predicting the end of the world as we know it on forty-three years of data seems somehow unsound.
There are lots of other things to touch on re this ultimate conservative movement, and I will in future essays. Don’t you find it ironic that the progressive socialists are using conservation of the past and present as their rallying cry? What I want to point out here is the ultimate failure of the climate activists in identifying the actual genesis of their observed events . Give us power and we will save you and the earth with our plan for alternative energy and natural agricultural practices. That is their rallying cry. But the real issue isn’t fossil fuels or chemical fertilizers or any of the other observed symptoms of the actual problem. Even an inexperienced observer can diagnose the real problem, it is over population. In 1800 the world population was 1 billion, in 2011 we achieved 7 billion and in 2020, 7.8 billion. If that rate of increase continues we’ll top ten billion by 2050. With the world growth rate and the migration from the undeveloped to the developed world, the threat isn’t what fuel we’re using but will there be enough water and food to support the world population, which will be concentrated in the countries with arable land. Building windmills and installing solar panels is like telling a cancer patient to take two aspirin and call me next week.
Rather than worrying about greenhouse gases we should be concentrating on reducing the world population growth and the concentration of people into cheek by jowl living where diseases spread life the wildfires in California. If we don’t do something about the real problem of population then Conquest, Pestilence/Death, Famine and War will once again ride across the nations of the world. You don’t think Putin didn’t give thought to taking Ukraine because it is the second largest producer of wheat in the world? Just as in the years of the plague when gold and silver lost their value so to will stocks, bonds and cyber currency, lose their value, to be replaced by food and clean water. History has tried to teach us, but we seem not to have learned.
So, then, the truth about the climate is there’ll always be one, and it will always change, regardless of what we do. If we couldn’t stop a virus how do we propose to change the climate? What we do have power over is controlling birth rates, but do we have the courage to educate the people and implement the necessary changes. The fewer people using fossil fuels the fewer greenhouse gases, the fewer people to feed, the less fertilizer needed, the fewer people living cheek by jowl the less chance of a plague sweeping through the nation. It can be done. The real threat to mankind are the wars for natural resources to come and the famine and pestilence arising out of those wars.