A Lost Myth

Other findings have also been inconclusive. The Commerce Department announced that U.S. surface temperatures in 1999 were the second warmest on record. What the department failed to mention is that it has other surface records in which 1999 falls below 1934, and that NASA ranks 1999 as the 14^th-warmest-year of the century. In the global atmosphere, satellites show 12 years warmer than 1999 and 8 cooler, while weather balloons show 15 warmer and 27 cooler.

All this is bad news for the anti-technologists. They desperately needed word of their long-awaited “greenhouse signal”, due to arrive with the new millennium. Now, in the absence of more solid proof, opposition to their global plans will continue to grow. Already, more than 17,000 American scientists have signed a petition opposing the Kyoto treaty. Treaty supporters, meanwhile, are increasingly relying on their multimillion-dollar media campaign promoting a perception of human-caused global warming.

That the Earth is warming is, of course, very old news. The current warming trend began about 300 years ago, at the low point of the Little Ice Age. Indeed, receding glaciers and other geographic phenomena caused by this 300-year trend were cited by NRC committee as support for their belief that the current rise in surface temperatures is probably real.

This rising trend and the fluctuations within it are closely correlated with solar activity. Solar increases during the early 20^th century caused a substantial rise in temperatures. This was followed by a cooling cycle. During this latter period, environmentalists spread doomsday scenarios about “global cooling” – a phenomenon, they claimed, caused by hydrocarbon fuels. Over the last 20 years, temperatures leveled, and now may be resuming their previous rise. The change has allowed the same environmentalists to spread fears of “global warming” – demonizing, of course, hydrocarbon fuels.

What will temperatures be during the 21^st century and beyond? No one knows. Astronomers are not year able to predict future solar activity. If current trends continue, however, our environment will be much improved.

Already, plant growth and diversity – from the forests and fields of North America to the rainforests of South America – have shown a marked increase. This is the result of carbon dioxide fertilization, a process that occurs when man moves carbon from below-ground deposits of coal, oil and natural gas, and puts it into the atmosphere where it is then used to make more plants and animals.

Some studies indicate that North American forests are growing so fast that they are storing all the human-released carbon from North America. Animals, because they eat plants, have increased just as rapidly. When this biological miracle stabilizes – one or two centuries in the future – it is estimated that the plant and animal population of the Earth may have doubled. Farm production is also being increased by carbon dioxide fertilization, and will continue to accelerate.

A warmer planet, with milder weather (as experienced during medieval times)and much more wildlife – how could a rue environmentalist wish for more? Worries about flooding in this warm world are unjustifiable. Floods did not occur 1000 years ago. Scientists have shown that it would take thousands of years for the ice caps to melt, if they melted at all. As warmer temperatures increase snow in the polar regions, sea levels might actually decrease.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-16