A healthy dose of skepticism is a good idea, especially when scientists become all too confident and make themselves out to be oracles.
—DER SPIEGEL (Online) writer Olaf Stampf
in his article today
“Not the End of the World as We Know It”
And there’s this goodie:
“Unfortunately many scientists see themselves too much as priests whose job it is to preach moralistic sermons to people.”
—Hans von Storch, a prominent climate researcher who is director of the Institute for Coastal Research at the GKSS Research Center in Geesthacht in northern Germany, in the same article
Sound familliar? It should.
Germany’s largest circulation news weekly, Der Spiegel’s online version takes an uncommonly calm look at the “man-made global warming” freak-out show currently being thrust in our faces, down our throats, up our nether regions, and mostly out of our wallets —by liberals and hippies and NBC TV weathermen and leftist environut propagandists and scientists who totally rely on perceived global crises with the then mandatory subsequent big-government funding, and the environut religion’s clergy whose hair is currently already on fire, ironically causing man-made global warming.
Here are some other highlights in this good read at Spiegel online:
During the so-called Medieval Warm Period between about 900 and 1300 A.D., for example, the Vikings raised livestock on Greenland and sailed to North America.
[…]
For one thing, the more paleontologists and geologists study the history of the earth’s climate, the more clearly do they recognize just how much temperatures have fluctuated in both directions in the past. Even major fluctuations appear to be completely natural phenomena.
Additionally, some environmentalists doubt that the large-scale extinction of animals and plants some have predicted will in fact come about. “A warmer climate helps promote species diversity,” says Munich zoologist Josef Reichholf.
Also, more detailed simulations have allowed climate researchers to paint a considerably less dire picture than in the past—gone is the talk of giant storms, the melting of the Antarctic ice shield and flooding of major cities.
Improved regionalized models also show that climate change can bring not only drawbacks, but also significant benefits, especially in northern regions of the world where it has been too cold and uncomfortable for human activity to flourish in the past. However it is still a taboo to express this idea in public.
For example, countries like Canada and Russia can look forward to better harvests and a blossoming tourism industry, and the only distress the Scandinavians will face is the guilty conscience that could come with benefiting from global warming.
[…]
According to another persistent greenhouse legend, massive flooding will strike major coastal cities, raising horrific scenarios of New York, London and Shanghai sinking into the tide. However this horror story is a relic of the late 1980s, when climate simulations were far less precise than they are today. At the time, some experts believed that the Antarctic ice shield could melt, which would in fact lead to a dramatic 60-meter (197-foot) rise in sea levels. The nuclear industry quickly seized upon and publicized the scenario, which it recognized as an argument in favor of its emissions-free power plants.
But it quickly became apparent that the horrific tale of a melting South Pole was nothing but fiction. The average temperature in the Antarctic is -30 degrees Celsius. Humanity cannot possibly burn enough oil and coal to melt this giant block of ice. On the contrary, current climate models suggest that the Antarctic will even increase in mass: Global warming will cause more water to evaporate, and part of that moisture will fall as snow over Antarctica, causing the ice shield to grow. As a result, the total rise in sea levels would in fact be reduced by about 5 cm (2 inches).
It’s a different story in the warmer regions surrounding the North Pole. According to an American study published last week, the Arctic could be melting even faster than previously assumed. But because the Arctic sea ice already floats in the water, its melting will have virtually no effect on sea levels.
There’s so much more. Go read it. Takes 10 minutes.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
Contact Mr. Johannesen about this article using this form. Please refer to article's title.
FOLLOW @JoelJohannesen ON X!
- Proud To Be Canadian. But Maybe Not. - Tuesday December 17, 2024 at 2:07 pm
- Say something. - Friday October 25, 2024 at 6:03 pm
- Keep going, or veer right - Monday August 26, 2024 at 4:30 pm
