Myths of Global Warmingby
Carlo Stagnaro
Is it possible that six centuries are longer than millions of years? Yes, but just at two conditions. First, that such an authoritative source as BBC claims so. Secondly, that it does so for politically correct, socially oriented, and environmental friendly purposes. It’s not a joke: you just have to check out Richard Hollingham’s reportage from Greenland. The author went to that cold and inhospitable place in order to see with his own eyes the effects of anthropogenic global warming. "Greenland is a massive island locked in ice," he says. "And from the air there is little evidence that it is melting. Its enormous ice cap, a sea of white stretching seemingly forever, overflows into thousands of glaciers... It is only when you get near to the base of the glaciers that you can see how the landscape is changing. A few metres above the ice, the rock is totally bare. A scar running horizontally across the valleys." The phenomenon is so dramatic that new vegetation is growing: "This land was being exposed for the first time for millions of years." Remember: millions of years. If things are really going this way, well, we have to do something. If really 150 years have been enough to change global climate in such a huge way, then we need to take action. Call it Kyoto Protocol or however else, we need to turn the Earth’s atmosphere to its natural conditions. We have to do it now. Time is running out and we can waste no more of it. Then the question arises: which atmospheric conditions are "normal"? Hollingham’s article, although indirectly, provides us with an answer: "The Earth's climate has warmed before, albeit naturally. A ruined church on the banks of a fjord marks the remains of a Viking farming civilisation. The sun casts shadows through the arched window to the site of the altar, last used in the 1400s before the area was abandoned when it became too cold to support habitation." It is quite a surprise that neither Mr Hollingham, nor BBC editors noticed such a clamorous contradiction. How is it possible that Vikings built in 1400s a Church on a land that hadn’t see the sun for millions of years? And how could they succeed in farming on a land that was supposedly covered by a deep ice layer? Finally, how can we know that the observed, recent global warming is due to man-made emissions, and not to natural causes? After all, BBC journalist tells that our planet used to be warmer centuries ago (at least warm enough for Greenland to be a fertile land) and then, for some reason, it got colder. It looks like Mr Hollingham has discovered what was and is obvious. There was no need to go all the way to Greenland just to recognize that Vikings were not stupid. When around one thousand years ago they discovered a green land, they called it Greenland. Then that very same land became white: climate had changed, as it always does and always will. As Mr Hollingham himself claims, "Greenland is turning green." Does it really sound that strange?
Carlo Stagnaro [send him mail] is Free Market Environmentalism Director of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free market think tank. Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com |
August
26, 2005