One of the weapons on the shelf for the Left to control the people is the endless hype about climate change. This used to be known as global warming. However, when the planet stopped warming around the turn of the century, the Left needed to change the conversation. So, they switched to climate change. If and when the Left gives up on COVID as a method of enslaving the population, one can expect that the “climate crisis” will climb to the top of the pile for creating fear that can be used to control people.
The Left’s claim is that humans are degrading the planet no matter which way the climate is going. Back on the 70’s, global cooling was all the rage. Humans were going to create another Ice Age. BY 2000 glaciers would be advancing on all the continents. The cause of all of this was…you guessed it, fossil fuels. In those days it was the carbon soot from such fuels that were stopping solar radiation from getting to the surface. Then the planer started to warm.
Of course, the earth has been experiencing climate change for millions of years. Most of that has been before man ever came on the scene. Some of that has been much more dramatic than anything conjured up by the Left. Anyone who denies this are the real science deniers.
What are some of the causes of long-term changes in climate?
One item that many experts in the field agree on is that the planet’s temperature does appear to be affected by the number of sunspots seen on the Sun’s surface over an extended period of time. There is a strong correlation between average temperature readings and the number of sunspots. The exact mechanism causing this is not well understood. There is much debate about how sunspots affect the temperature.
There is phenomenon known as the Grand Solar Minimum (GSM). This occurs every few hundred years. The number of sunspots falls off a cliff and stays down for decades. During the last GSM also known as a Maunder Minimum, glaciers advanced, rivers froze and sea ice became more predominant. It was known as the Little Ice Age.
Those paintings you have seen of people skating on rivers and lakes in Europe were not something conjured up by artists. They were a recurring event across all of Europe at the time. Some historians claim that the last GSM helped the colonization of our young nation. The winters were so bitterly cold in New England that many people moved west looking for a better life.
Another item that correlates with a GSM is a significant increase in vulcanism and earthquakes. Some of the most explosive volcano eruptions in recorded history (think Krakatoa) appear to have occurred during a GSM. And the number of eruptions also spike.
The number of sunspots has been declining for more than a decade. We appear to be in the early stages (a decade or two) of a GSM. So, is another Little Ice Age about to happen?
Anony Lee has written on this.
Probably not. Maunder occurred at the tail end of a bi-millennial cycle. These cycles range between 2,000 and 2,600 years in length and see the Earth first warm, then cool. Gradual cooling had been going on for hundreds of years. Maunder just capped it off. Today we are a few hundred years into the warming phase of the subsequent bi-millennial cycle. Different starting conditions yield different paths.
The progressives say that we’re so deep into anthropogenically accelerated climate change (AACC) that there’s almost no time left to turn things around. If we don’t act now, it will be too late.
Nope, sorry squad members. What we can predict, instead, is an overall temperature reduction of 1 degree Centigrade by the end of the GSM. Afterward, natural warming at the rate of around 0.5 C. every hundred years will continue for the next 600 years or so. Of course another GSM will take place sometime during that process.
How long will the GSM last? Hard to say. The Sun is a bit temperamental that way. However, based on previous GSM’s, 60 to 80 years seems to be a reasonable prediction.
With that in mind, it would seem that the science has a few decades to devise methods for mitigating the impact of “unstoppable” global warming on humankind. Of course, that assumes that CO2 is a bellweather, greenhouse gas. That is, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is the prime determinant of the planet’s temperature.
There are experts who dispute that. They point to times past when the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was 10 to 15 times higher than what it is today. “Unstoppable” global warming did not occur.
Anony Lee points out another problem:
Reasonably speaking: We’ve been warming, so the cooling of the GSM will just even us out for a while. Therefore, nothing to worry about, right?
Well, not quite. There are a few worries. Plants grow in response to warmth, moisture, nutrients, and most importantly sunlight. Even if the temperature does not plunge to glacial depths, some cooling will take place and clouds are expected to grow denser and cover much of the earth’s surface as this GSM bottoms out. If normally-correlating volcanism takes place, the additional material in the atmosphere will further darken the globe and provide even more opportunity for condensation and cloud formation.
Last year, Dr. Valentina Zharkova wrote “This global cooling during the upcoming grand solar minimum…would require inter-government efforts to tackle problems with heat and food supplies for the whole population of the Earth” (not to mention their livestock).
I can vouch for this effect on crops. I plant a vegetable garden every year. Years with a lot of rain and clouds result in fewer veggies and smaller ones as well.
A darkening of the globe by these various events will decrease the amount of power generated from solar. It will also affect wind generation since turbines shut down if the wind is too strong and wilder weather is part of a GSM. We have also seen that turbines will freeze. So, at a time when more power will be needed, less will be generated from the so-called clean energy sources.
Lee further notes:
Even worse is this: Historically, GSMs have been associated with extreme weather events. Floods, droughts, heavy snowfall, late springs, and early autumns have all resulted in famine. Famine during GSMs has led to starvation and societal upheaval. No one wants the former, and I think we’ve seen enough of the latter this past year or so to do for our lifetimes.
We have not yet hit the bottom of this cycle. We can expect more extreme weather events as the planet cools. Food production must be a priority. We must find ways to increase our production in an environment that will be working against us. We The People can do this. Despite the negativity of our first bi-racial President, American exceptionalism is a fact.
Lee has laid out a template to work from:
On the federal level, take the brakes off energy production. No more talk of closing power plants, especially coal-fired ones, or of removing hydroelectric dams. Reinstate the Keystone XL pipeline; we’re going to need that fuel available to us when the predictable contraction of the global fuel market occurs. Extend the tax credits for those who install solar power. Production may not be optimal during the GSM, but as much as can occur will take a load off commercial energy.
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The USDA should not just take the brakes off agricultural production; it should encourage all producers to ramp it up. We need to have enough on hand to address the expected shortfall between production and requirement for at least five years.
I would add that the ethanol requirement as an additive to gasoline should be abolished. We will need all food production to go to actually feeding people and livestock.
We The People can do this if the government will only get out of the way.