By Lee Gerhard
Climate scientists would be less likely to issue dire warnings of planetary doom if they had more confidence in the geologic history of the past few million years. Instead, they rely on computer models that are skewed by manipulative prejudices and incapable of accounting for the myriad factors that influence global temperatures.
The very small recent warming, whatever the cause, is inconsequential given the long data found in Antarctic ice cores going back 800,000 years. The bottom line is that the Earth is nearly 3 degrees Celsius colder than it was 3,000 years ago and is now emerging from the longest cold spell in the past 10,000 years. The crazy headlines about the record heatwaves of the past 100 years are nonsense and hysterical blather.
Digging deeper into geological history – partly based on records stored over millions of years in deep ocean sediments – shows that carbon dioxide concentrations today are 420 parts per million, just a fraction of levels previously reached 5,000 ppm or more. Carbon dioxide is almost at its lowest level since plant life began millions of years ago and is far below the optimal amount for the health of most plants.
In fact, concentrations of 280 ppm in the mid-19th century were uncomfortably close to the point at which plants died – below 150 ppm. Given that all life depends on this gas, proposals to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are no less reckless.
Any increase in global carbon dioxide would be beneficial and have almost no impact on future temperatures. On the contrary, evidenced in the “bible” of human history and climate change compiled by the late professor Hubert Lamb at the University of East Anglia, is cold.
He reports that during the Little Ice Age in many parts of England, “the number of annual burials exceeded the number of births from the 1660s until about 1730.”
So why are so many fossil fuels demonized? Wealth from coal, oil and natural gas has brought comfort – and funding – to many researchers focusing on climate change instead of struggling to survive. Global society is completely dependent on cheap and abundant energy for its survival. Why do some people demand that civilization withdraw from useful sources of energy to bring about mass famine, poverty, and horse-drawn carriages?
Dreaming of a utopian world may be admirable, but causing suffering to society through ignorance of science is deplorable.
Humanity is deprived of valuable lessons when too many people subscribe to the ideology and fears of climate alarmists instead of the meticulous research of brilliant physical scientists like Richard Alley , a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University who pioneered ice core research, and Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who discovered the astonishing complexity wonder of atmospheric physics.
We could easily name dozens of others with similar credentials who are virtually unknown outside the scientific community.
The public is “protected” from empirical data by traditional and social media censors, who eagerly broadcast the supposed need to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 .0 degrees Celsius – artificial structures with no scientific basis.
As a result, we suffer the consequences of unwarranted regulatory interference in our daily lives, be it restrictions on heating, air conditioning, dishwashers and stoves. or prices increase and electricity availability decreases. The effects of these range from unpleasant to life-threatening.
There is no global climate emergency. However, there is a widespread knowledge crisis.
This commentary was first published at Washington Times on May 1, 2024.
Lee Gerhard is a senior scientist emeritus at the University of Kansas, former director of the Kansas Geological Survey, member of the CO2 Alliance, retired Getty Professor of Geological Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, and co-author of “Geological Perspectives on Global Climate Change.” He has a PhD in geology.
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