Past Gives Clue To Climate Impact

Are you suggesting the earth hasn't always been at present temperature Ed? Or worse, that temp changes happened before humans and our "neo-classical" economies began to destroy mother earth. Maybe I should re-think my support of Kyoto credits.

You don't have to go back that far in geologic history for examples of abrupt climate change. At the end of the previous ice age 12000BC when the glaciers were retreating, there was an abrupt climate change which lasted a thousand years called the “Younger Dryas”

Climates changed by about 7ºC in period of only twenty years. This can be likened to a Mediterranean climate changing to a Scandinavian climate in twenty years. It is thought that the climate change was cause by changes in the thermohaline flow. Warm currents travel north up the Atlantic from the tropics and give northern Europe its temperate climate. These were interrupted by prodigious quantities of fresh water from melting glaciers plunging the northern hemisphere into a millennium of freezing temperatures.

More recently there was a warm period called the Medieval Warm Period which lasted from the 10th to the 14 century. During this time Vikings explored the ice-free north Atlantic and started colonies in Greenland, Iceland and Newfoundland.

Then more recently there was the Little Ice Age which lasted from 1300 to 1850. During this period the Viking colonies in Newfoundland and Greenland were abandoned because cold weather made agriculture impossible and ice packs made coastal waters un-navigable.

During the Little Ice Age there were periods of increased cold that coincided with low sunspot numbers. One of these periods was called the Maunder Minimum which occurred between 1645 and 1715. A few years before, Galileo studied and identified sunspots on the sun. But during the Maunder Minimum, astronomers looked in vain for Galileo’s sunspots and suspected that they didn’t exist.

When I was a kid in the fifties, I used to skate on the Fraser River in Ladner behind the old Buckerfields store. I met old timers there who told me that before the First World War they used to skate up the Fraser River from Ladner to New Westminster.

We may be facing an abrupt climate change similar to the Younger Dryas. It is feared that one of the consequences of global warming would be melting of the arctic polar ice pack. The influx of fresh water from the Arctic might disrupt the thermohaline flow stopping the Gulf Stream. Without the warmth of these ocean currents, Europe and North America may be plunged into another mini ice age.

Bill Meyer

I'd like to point out that I didn't write the article, it was sent to me by one of my world class scentist friends in the field. I only forwarded it, as a matter of interest not so much for me, but for younger people, including my grandchildren.

We've lived here, out in the forest, for 27 years and the recent abrupt climate changes are giving us major concerns. Right now we should be having at least 50cm of packed snow and temperatures in the -15 to -20 range. We have no snow, neither has Western Canada, and our temperature is around +4C. There's grass gowing in our meadows and the aspen trees are beginning to bud. One of our neighbours found a pussywillow. In January, in the Cariboo, where we haven't had our usual -40 temperatures for years and the pine beetles are eating up our forests.

It may be an "Act of God", but at the same time, it is a very curious coincidence that both resource conversion and pollution have doubled and tripled in the past 30 years since the neoclassical theory raised its ugly head and was forced on the world and all physical activities must cause equal reactions.

Looking at the terrible devastation around us, I'm convinced that when indiscriminate logging next door changes our local climate, our blood is full of dozens of deadly chemicals, etc. the effects of the neoclassical, monetary economy, based on more and more resource conversion and waste, must impact the climate of larger areas and the globe. This is quite obvious and my friends in the field have stacks of figures to prove it.

China is one of the worst offenders and their government is finally beginning to wake up, by inviting scientists from all over the world, trying to nail down the causes and offer solutions. Some of my friends are in China 3-4 times a year on the invitation of their government. Wish I could see it here.

By the way, the Mayan Calendar, stops on Dec 7, 2012, which is interpreted by mystics, and I'm not one of them, as either a polar shift destroying the globe, or the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment?

Being an incurable optimnist, I vote and believe in the second option, when finally humanity may come to its senses and kick out the economists and their criminal ideas of wealth creation.

Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC.

Here near Phoenix Arizona, we experience record high temperatures this winter, and have already had about 80 days without rain. The drought continues. There is also a lack of snow in the high country, which causes concerns about water supply for cities like Flagstaff, Williams and Springerville.

Is this perhaps a repeat of the demise of the Hohokam civilization around 1350? Global warming indeed.

Well as Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace puts it:

"Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with." Got that? Any weather condition above or below norms is a sign of global warming. Presumably, normal temps are a sign to flee immediately - as the world will surely end tomorrow unless we shed the "neo classical economy" and embrace communism. Cause everyone knows the central planners took great care of their environments. Didn't they?

I really enjoyed the protest in Montreal during the Kyoto meet and greet. As reported by the Canadian Press:

"Montreal - tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming."

Now that is funny stuff. You just can't make up that kind of headline, it has to be provided by chanting fools.