There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the Russian Federation in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since1980, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be warming up. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the warming trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a rise of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1980 and 2012. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large decrease in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 2010-11. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine not leaving the ground in the continental U.S. rose by 1.3% between 1998 and 2010.
To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present rise has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the warmest eras. Others regard the warming as a reversion to the 1930s conditions that brought deadly summers to much of Europe and northern America.
Just what causes the onset of major and minor warming periods remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”
“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as creating global restrictions on energy sources that the majority of the world relies on to survive and need to grow, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.
—PETER GWYNNE with bureau reports
And he promises inside it that we will see more powerful destructive hurricanes like Katrina, which recently occurred when he made An Inconvenient Truth.
But what has happened since then? Beautiful poetic justice. Since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, America’s mainland has not been directly hit by A SINGLE Hurricane (winds sustained at 111mph). That’s 2.412 days. The longest streak on record, which goes back to the Civil War. This is not some global warming denier crap. This is well documented and (scarcely) but admitted by members of the Church of Climatology, who of course put their spin on the whole thing.
The same scientists who told us we need to be immediately concerned with more Katrinas are now saying “hold on, we couldn’t possibly be seeing the effects of global warming on Hurricanes yet Hurricanes yet!” But they only say this now because of how badly they failed with their original prediction.
One thing that the Church of Climatology is being forced to do constantly the past 2 years, and the next few: push back doom dates. Nothing is going as predicted because their models were stupid and wrong and so they need to delay their date, instead of admitting they’re wrong, in order to continue getting funding to study a fabricated issue that is “global warming” (or global climate change) (or global climate disruption) (or global weirding).
By the end of summer. Hopefully quicker than that.
Global Warming alarmists are embarrassed and hide this fact more than most any other. In the 1970s, it was a scientific consensus almost to the level it is today that man was causing the drop in temperature observed from 1938-1970s. In this article and a TIME magazine article, climatologists, even those who support global warming today, discuss the dire situation we are in if we don’t try to reverse global cooling. It is so depressingly familiar and similar that I think I’m gonna have some fun with the article tomorrow morning. Hold me to it.
They’re setting a 55 mpg speed limit and requiring all cars to be hybrids by 2015.
Just kidding, that would be stupid. Just as stupid as NASCAR going green aside from the one thing that they do, DRIVE CARS. So how exactly are they going green? The exact same way every single other company that goes green does- they lie and tell you they’re more environmentally friendly, and they make tons of extra green from their trickery.
“Green” is the most abused, profitable, ridiculous buzz word in marketing history.
They both have been on the record stating that little to no scientific peer-reviewed papers have been published that suggests anything contrary to the Church of Climatology’s belief that Anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change is a 100% fact and ravaging our world.
Well, here is a list these awesome guys put together of not one, not ten, not 100, but 1,000+ PEER-REVIEWED and PUBLISHED papers that promotes what skeptics believe, that natural factors are overwhelmingly responsible for the little warming that has happened since the last ice age minima, and that our CO2 has caused none of the consequences that crazy people like Al Gore say. Polar Bear population included.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
How sad is it that to make their point, the Church of Climatology not only tries to terrorize people in to believing, but they suppress and deny any opposition. AGW is a sinking ship, I hope everyone jumps off sooner than later.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
The Arctic sea ice level is at a record high, and polar bears are doing fine. The Church of Climatology is probably working on rebranding their image again, because nothing is going according to their warming melting plans.
that if climate change continues on it’s erratic path of insanity, 200,000,000 Americans will suffer greater stress and more suicides will be likely.
How far will crazy organizations like the NWF go to attempt to scare the public in to doing something about their fake cause? And when will they realize that it’s not working? I guess we’ll just have to laugh and wait and see.
Celebrating with us are the billions of people in third world countries around the world who barely have any electricity in their country to turn off during this hour. Let’s show our disdain for electricity and coal, two things that have made our civilizations what they have become.
You are giving up electricity for one hour. Then you’re going to keep them on because YOU NEED AND LOVE ELECTRICITY AND COAL. And not a single person in a developed nation who isn’t a stupid hippie who wishes everyone just lived in communes smoking pot would want it any other way. You are lucky enough to have a stove to cook food on. A car to drive around. Oh you only ride a bike? Unless you made it, I’m sure you’re happy you live in a country with enough (evil) energy to manufacture your bike. You’re lucky enough to have a home that you can heat or cool to keep your family comfortable. You’re lucky enough to have a paying job that most likely involves the use of energy that facilitates your job so you’re not stuck working in the burning heat getting pennies an hour. You’re lucky enough to have cell phones, be able to tweet or comment that you are being so trendy and caring by turning off your lights for an hour.
What kind of message are we sending to all of the poor people in the world who WANT “dirty” energy? Who dream of a day when they can live in a house with electricity to keep their family healthy and clean? To be able to cook on something that’s not an open fire? To be able to communicate with people. To be able to get the news on their TV or internet or anything. If they started creating coal plants, would you honestly tell them no? The main reason why the world CO2 production is rising is because countries like India and China are trying to bring their people to the level of health and safety that comes with energy and electricity. You’ve probably seen a picture of North Korea and South Korea at night. There ARE NO lights in North Korea. A lack of energy in today’s world means a lack of healthy citizens, a lack of any freedom, living in fear and horrible conditions. Why do we want to imitate that?
We all know that nuclear energy is the only energy comparable in the least to coal energy. But we can’t hook up all of Africa on to nuclear energy. Are you going to tell them sucks for you, you have to stay poor and destitute? Or pollute all of Africa with stupid wind farms and solar fields until there’s no where left for civilizations to grow? Are you going to tell them “hey you’re lucky! You may be starving and suffering, but you’re not adding tiny amounts of a trace gas that has an extremely tiny effect on our climate and atmosphere and is ACTUALLY A GOOD THING FOR PLANTS AND MOST LIVING THINGS.”
No, because the morons who are celebrating are the ones who think they can save Africa by buying t-shirts and ipod apps. It’s great to care, but only when you od it intelligently. Pretending like you’re making some great statement by being without electricity for an like so many others in the world do for life is pretentious and stupid.
Happy Earth Hour!
