(Note: Hyperlinks are underlined.)
Ten years ago or so, I read an article in National Geographic (possibly a 1990’s issue) about Iceland. The author mentioned in passing that Icelanders were able to grow cabbage again due to a warming climate—after several hundred years of prohibitive cold.
I assumed that the author referred to warming due to human-caused increase in greenhouse gases... For me, that went without saying: in my 35 or so years of being alive, that was the only explanation I had ever heard for global warming. But it struck me as something of an anomaly that Icelanders had been able to grow cabbage before—just four or five hundred years prior. What was that about? Still, I simply consigned the anomaly to my lack of knowledge on the subject and believed that the fact that Icelanders were again able to grow cabbage was just more proof that human-caused global warming was indeed occurring. Sometime later, when I told the story of the cabbage to a wise elderly woman friend, her response—something like, “See what I mean”—and other remarks she had made at various times made it clear to me that she didn’t believe that “climate change” (as she corrected, not “global warming”) was due to human activity, and made me think she’d been overly influenced by the “denialist” camp of the conservative right. Because of this, I questioned her wisdom for years to come; I couldn’t see that I was blind to something that I had even given testimony to: that the climate in Iceland had been warmer before, and that fact could not be attributed to human influences of the industrial age.
The idea of Iceland being warmer in the past stayed with me—on a back burner in my memory—but it wasn’t until this very spring of 2020 that I began more actively questioning what I had been taught in high school regarding global warming. The impetus for that questioning and searching I will leave to reveal later. But here’s what I’ve found...
Around the year 985, Eric the Red sailed to Greenland (from Iceland I presume). He was able to make it there due to the fact that there had been a withdrawal in the ice that previously would have barred any passage. A colony was established in on the southwestern coast, and by 1100, the colony had grown to around 3000 inhabitants. After that time, the colony split in two, with a second colony being established farther north, also on the west coast.
By 1350, however, (shy of 400 years since the time of the first settlement) ice pack had again begun encroaching south and crushed the northern settlement. In 1410, the last supply ship reached the southern settlements. Inuit hunters were also pushing south in Greenland and began competing with the Norsemen for seals. Meanwhile, the codfish left, migrating away from the colonies following warmer water south. Thus two primary food sources that had brought the Norse to Greenland were now scarce or non-existent. Skeletons of the Norse of that period, discovered in frozen soil, are shorter, denoting poor nutrition. In the end, the colonists killed the last of their dairy cows—an extreme measure, revealing that indeed they must have been starving. Greenland was left devoid of Norseman.
Resettlement didn’t begin until the year 1721. Today, Greenland has a population of over 50,000 and 20,000 sheep.
The above timeline was given in the prologue of a book called Unstoppable Global Warming—every 1,500 years (Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, 2007). The authors go on to say that ice cores and seabed settlements reveal 600 natural, 1,500-year cycles of warming and cooling over the last 1 million years.
In Understanding the Global Warming Hoax (2009, p. 30), retired physicist Leo Johnson tells of the warm period that lasted 400 years (the same time period as Greenland’s settlement by the Norse) followed by a cold period of 550 years, and then warming again:
“The Medieval Warm Period (or Medieval Climate Optimum) from AD 900 to 1300 was as much as 2ºF warmer than today. The shoreline of Greenland turned green and was settled by Eric the Red, and civilization prospered from a more stable climate, longer growing seasons, and agricultural abundance. The period following the Medieval Warm Period from AD 1300 to 1850 is known as the Little Ice Age. A climate about 2ºF cooler than today brought crop failure and starvation, floods that killed hundreds of thousands, and epidemics of bubonic plague and typhus that killed 30 million in Europe and 40 million in Africa.”
At the height of what is called the Little Ice Age—we learned of Ice Ages in high school, but no one ever mentioned “little ice ages” to my recollection—was a period between 1640 and 1710 known as the Maunder Sunspot Minimum. This time period was the coldest of all, and was of great alarm because it was so severe and long lasting that it caused crop failure, famines, and starvation. Normally, sunspots go through an 11 and a 22 year cycle of increasing and decreasing. An increase in sunspots apparently means a warmer year. But during the Maunder Minimum there were apparently NO sunspots observed for 70 years!
And this leads to the question, “Does the sun play a role in global warming (or cooling)?”
In 2001, the journal Science quoted glaciologist Richard Alley of Penn State University as saying, “It really looks like the sun mattered to climate.”
Alley was referring to a study made by a Columbia University team led by Gerard Bond entitled, “Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene.” Alley goes on, “The Bond et al. data are sufficiently convincing that [solar variability] is now the leading hypothesis to explain the roughly 1,500 year oscillation of the climate since the last ice age, including the Little Ice Age of the 17th century.” (Science 294, 16 Nov. 2001; cited in Singer and Avery, op cit., ch.1)
In fact, there’s not just one, but a number of cycles of the sun that science takes into account:
“Climate forecasters must factor the 100,000 year elliptical cycle, the 40,000 year axial tilt cycle, and the 23,000 year precession or ‘wobble’ cycle, plus the 1,500 year solar driven cycle. However, it is the 1500 year cycle that drives most of the earth’s climatic change during interglacial periods.” (Singer and Avery; referencing John and Katherine Imbrie, Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery, Harvard University Press, 1986)
In fact, according to the 23,000 year cycle of precession of the earth’s wobble on its axis, “we should now be entering an extended period of ice sheet growth” due to milder summers.
But what has has especially fascinated me recently is the sunspot cycle, or the cycle of solar activity: which is well-known to have 11-year and 22-year cycles, but also has 200-year and roughly 1500-year cycles.
“Sunspots are regions of intense magnetic activity on the solar surface. The more sunspots, the greater the solar activity. Associated with solar activity is the solar wind—a continuous ejection of charged particles from the sun’s surface that travel throughout interplanetary space—and a solar magnetic field that is carried by these charged particles. The solar magnetic field deflects some of the cosmic rays from outer space, preventing them from striking the earth’s atmosphere. The stronger the magnetic field, the greater the diversion of cosmic rays from our atmosphere.” (Johnson, p. 79)
Thus, an increase in sunspots corresponds with an increase in magnetic activity that results in cosmic rays being diverted from earth’s atmosphere. Yet, the direct effect of the 11-year sunspot cycle on solar illumination of the earth is minimal—varying by only about 0.001 watt per square meter with each cycle. Since solar illumination averages around 342 watts per square meter, the effect of solar activity is not great. However, Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark discovered that cosmic rays are directly involved in the formation of clouds and has demonstrated a “mechanism by which cosmic rays ionize air molecules and create condensation nucleii for water vapor and the formation of clouds.” This same process is responsible for the creation of radioactive carbon-14 and beryllium-10 in the atmosphere, which are in turn precipitated to the earth and allow for a history of “variations in the solar magnetic field, cosmic ray intensity and, most importantly, Earth’s climate extending hundreds of millions of years into the past” to be determined through ice core and geological core samples. (Johnson, p. 79,80)
Significantly, the effect that low solar activity has on cloud formation—a 10% variation in cosmic ray flux per cycle of solar activity resulting in a 3% variation in cloud cover during the same cycle—amplifies the effect of variations in earth’s solar illumination by a factor of ten thousand during each solar cycle. (Johnson, p. 80, citing Canadian scientist Jan Veizer’s data analysis). Thus, it can now be explained why solar activity, and sunspot cycles, have such a profound effect on earth’s climate.
Less sunspots=less solar magnetic activity —> less cosmic rays diverted from earth’s atmosphere —> greater ionization of the atmosphere and cloud seeding —> cooling due to increased cloud cover
More sunspots=more solar magnetic activity —> more cosmic rays diverted from earth’s atmosphere —> less ionization of the atmosphere and cloud seeding —> warming due to lesser cloud cover
(Standing outside under a porch as I edit this, my body is chilled from incoming clouds and rain... Just a half hour ago, I was hot.)
Johnson (p.81) continues, “Numerous studies by German and Finnish scientists have demonstrated a strong correlation between variations in global temperature and both sunspot counts and cosmic ray flux, extending over the last eleven thousand years. The influence of solar activity on cosmic rays is identified with nine warming-cooling cycles roughly fifteen hundred years long since the end of the last ice age... Jan Veizer has found a remarkable correspondence between the cycles of solar activity and global temperature throughout the last millennium, including both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Particularly striking is the clear correspondence between low solar activity and the four cold periods of the Little Ice Age (the Wolf Minimum, 1300-1360; the Sporer Minimum, 1450-1540; the Maunder Minimum, 1645-1715; the Dalton Minimum, 1790-1820), as well as reduced solar activity during the cool period of the 20th century (1960s-1970s).”
Concerning the last century, Johnson says, “The global warming of the 20th century coincided with the highest level of solar activity over the last eight thousand years, rising by a factor of 2.3 since 1901. Solar activity began to decline in 2000, sunspots are disappearing, and a steep decline is expected for at least the next two eleven-year cycles. The decline means increased cloud cover and an extensive period of global cooling in the years ahead.” So far, he appears to be correct, as sunspots have come to a new low during this 11-year cycle’s solar minimum in 2020, and Farmer’s Almanac and many others have published articles telling us to get ready for some cool weather ahead.
Here’s a rough timeline of warming/cooling periods since the last Ice Age (adapted from Singer and Avery, prologue):
9000 to 5000 B.P. — Holocene Climate Optimum
—
600 to 200 B.C.E. — Unnamed Cold Period preceding the Roman Warming
200 B.C.E. to 600 C.E. — Roman Warming
600 to 900 — Dark Ages Cold Period
900 to 1300 — Medieval Warming (or Medieval Climate Optimum)
1300 to 1850 — Little Ice Age (two stages)
1850 to 1940 — Warming, especially between 1920 and 1940
1940 to 1975 — Cooling trend
1976 to 1978 — Sudden warming spurt
1979 to 2007 — Moderate warming trend
In the interview above, Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner, retired head of the paleogeophysics and geodynamics at Stockholm University, describes how sea levels in the Baltic have been rising very slightly over the past centuries; meanwhile, the land has been uplifting in Stockholm at a much greater rate due to decreasing weight from glaciation since the 1700s. He also says we could be seeing a new Little Ice Age begining as early as 2030, 2040, or 2050. Mörner, who was a sea level reviewer for the IPCC, warned the IPCC that they were decieving the public about climate change and sea level rises. They refused to listen to him or even to debate the subject. Disillusioned, Mörner resigned. He’s not alone.
IPCC climate science revisionism
Above: Dr David Deming's statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works on December 6, 2006.
The following graph appeared in the first two IPCC reports of 1990 and 1995. It shows clearly the Medieval Warming Period warmer than today:
Some have since claimed that graph was based on local cilmate from Central Europe and was therefore not repesentative of global climate, but the graph is shown to correlate with a 1981 study led by James E. Hansen which examined data from England, Greenland, and California. (Curiously, Hansen has been a key proponent of global warming alarmism.) Other studies from around the world confim the global extent of the MWP.
Yet the next IPCC report, in 2001, and subsequent reports (reports are produced every 5 to 7 years) omitted the graph. In it’s place appeared a new graph produced by Michael Mann. It is commonly referred as the “hockey stick” graph because of its shape:
As you can see, the new graph appears more or less flat up until the last century (notice the scale of the graph is tenths of a degree Celsius), and both the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age are imperceivable (though Wikipedia—whose entries are trolled and persistently edited by special interests—shows that the Medieval Warming Period is “discussed” in post 2001 IPCC reports). The controversy and debate over the “hockey stick,” by scientists and a plethora of others, has been endless—a controversy that has been intertwined, as well, with a mass of leaked or hacked emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia revealing behind the scenes collusion and scheming that became known as Climategate.
Mann’s hockey stick graph was mysteriously absent from the IPCC’s fourth report in 2007. With so much controversy, defaming, and scandal, it’s no wonder.
So now we must ask the question, “Why did the IPCC omit the first graph that showed clearly the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice age?” The IPCC website claims that newer understanding of climate accounts for the change. If that’s so, it’s is quite a radical departure. But before we take them on their word, we might want to ask who the IPCC is and how they work.
IPCC stands for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was founded in 1988 by two UN organizations: the UN World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environmental Programme. Although it is commonly perceived to be a scientific organization and does involve a body of scientists from around the world, in principle, it is a UN organization with a political agenda.
In a presentation addressing a meeting of the World Federation of Scientists, investigative journalist Donna Laframboise explains how the IPCC operates, and how the original colossal several thousand page report of its “specially selected” scientists gets distilled into a roughly 30 page Summary for Policy Makers—the only part of the entire report that most parties will probably ever take the time to look at—and that this summary, though drafted by the scientists, is reviewed, edited, and essentially re-written, paragraph by paragraph, not by those scientists but by an IPCC body consisting primarily of “diplomats, politicians, foreign affairs specialists, bureaucrats, and other officials” in a harrowing, week-long meeting that extends late into each night and that Laframboise calls, “a week of naked political horse trading that goes on behind closed doors.” (Emphasis hers.)
“But the bad news doesn’t stop there. There’s actually a step in the IPCC process in which the original, lengthy report gets amended so that it conforms to the politically-negotiated Summary. I am not making this up,” Donna says. “The world is then told that science has spoken. But what’s just happened has nothing to do with science. Scientific truth is not determined in the dead of night by UN-level negotiations.”
Finally, she shows that the IPCC’s purpose is to serve the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, an international treaty involving 197 countries that is the parent treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Many who are convinced that human-caused global warming is real would applaud that. But if the IPCC has the objective of serving a UN international treaty—and even more specifically and explicitly of studying the effect of anthropogenic carbon dioxide on climate change (ignoring other factors by default)—can we be sure it’s report is unbiased and scientific when in reality its final content is determined by politicians and bureaucrats? (See a transcript of Donna’s presentation here.)
Moreover, is the science behind the IPCC’s 1995 graph showing a Medieval Warm Period warmer than the present truly outdated, or are there political and financial interests behind portraying global warming in the past century as unprecedented—an extreme, man-made threat to the natural world and to human survival?
My investigations into that question still seem incomplete. The ramifications are much more far-reaching that one would anticipate, and this post does not seem like the place to discuss everything I’ve discovered already. But I will say that I am convinced that the latter is the case: there are vast financial and other interests in controlling the trajectory of climate perception and policy.
In the words of James Corbet in his epic dual documentary, How & Why Big Oil Conquered the World:
“...even today, the masses, outraged over the carnage that Big Oil has wrought, are content to have that outrage directed by the very oiligarchs they seek to oppose, the same oiligarchs who are quietly funding and supporting their environmental movement from behind the scenes — and even leading it from the front.”
Conclusion
I’d like to bring out one more thing...
I am an environmentalist and a nature lover at heart. I spend most of my time in the woods, alone. I own no vehicle but my bicycle and my own two feet. And unlike those who live in extravagant luxury while claiming that the world needs to follow their prescripts for a smaller “carbon footprint” (need I name names?), I live simply, conscientiously, with few possessions—a child of philosophy.
I am also chemically sensitive—i.e. I have a chronic illness that is exacerbated significantly by brief exposures to air pollution and a wide array of man-made chemicals—including most anything made from petroleum. (You can read my previous writings on alternatives to toxic cleaning and hygiene products... on artificial fragrance, which is made primarily of toxic petrochemicals... on glyphosate, the principle ingredient in the weedkiller Roundup... and on fluoride, a toxic industrial waste product redeemed as a “tooth savior.”)
Because of my sensitivities, and because of my deep love for the earth, I have every reason to applaud a move toward cleaner, more earth and human-friendly energy and more responsible care-taking of our beloved planet. But there are two things in the current popular environmental movement I cannot applaud:
- Faulty or fraudulent science creating the perception of extreme emergency, of near inevitable destruction of earth’s entire ecosystem by global warming, in order to advance political agendas
- The demonization of carbon dioxide and monetization of carbon, the building block of life
In the words of environmentalist Lawrence Solomon in the concluding chapter to his 2008 book, The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming, Political Persecution and Fraud (and those who are too fearful to do so):
“...Kyoto is not an insurance policy. Just the opposite, it is the single, greatest threat to today to the global environment, because it turns carbon into currency. Carbon is the element upon which all living things are built. With carbon a kind of currency—which is what all carbon taxes and carbon trading and similar schemes do—all ecosystems suddenly have a commercial value that makes them subject to manipulation for gain... The first big Kyoto calamity is the threat to the world’s forests, especially the old-growth forests, which do not soak up carbon from the atmosphere. These have become the favorites of corrupt Third World governments. By seizing the forests, cutting them down, and converting them into carbon-intensive plantations, governments and their cronies have been cashing in on carbon credits...”
Solomon demonstrates with this example from India: “Here’s how it was put by the Forest People Program, a gathering of tribal peoples in India’s North Eastern Regioin of Guwahati in 2003: ‘The climate-change debate has turned forests into a carbon commodity, which will have to provide carbon credits for a lucrative carbon market that will allow industrialized countries to continue emitting greenhouse gases.”
And in Brazil’s Minas Gerais: “The Plantar [carbon sequestration] project—financed by OECD governments and run by the World Bank’s Carbon Finance Unit—is converting 23,100 hectares of natural forest to eucalyptus tree plantations to produce wood for charcoal to replace coal for pig iron production.” Leaf litter from eucalyptus, by the way, damages the soil and makes it impossible for other plants to regrow.
Solomon goes on to cite other environmental casualties of a switch to a so-called “green, low-carbon” economy, including the rising demand for ethanol, which has a water intensive production process “requiring 1,700 liters of water per liter of ethanol produced,” leading to drained aquifers, disputes over water courses and rising agricultural land prices. I might add that, as I understand it, ethanol is produced from corn, which is generally a GMO crop these days usually requiring vast amounts of artificial fertilizers and pesticides (all to greater benefit Bayer-Monsanto’s monopoly), not to mention energy input in the form of tractors and transport. Solomon also ties carbon credit subsidizing to the renewed finacibility of nuclear plants and collosal scale hydroelectric projects like China’s Three Gorges Dam. (See second video below)
Here's Lawrence Solomon's surprising revelation of IPCC "consensus"... (10 minutes)...
For those who are interested in a little bit longer video, Lawrence Solomon's presentation below is one of the most excellent I have seen on the subject. (45 min.)
In concluson, I would like to say that I have written this article out of my love for the earth... for her natural history... for her human children and their history... and for her abundant and diverse inhabitants: the plants, animals, sea creatures, rocks, mountains, and sky. It is my love for this intricate web of life, and for the earth that spawns it, that calls me to rise in testimony of her greatness... and to say, humans and their civilization are not the end-all determination of earth's destiny. And may we two-leggeds find our way to return, with relish, to our place amongst her creatures, a part of her ecosystem, in humility and reverence for all of life.
Related links:
Climategate, Michael Mann, and the hockey-stick graph
https://principia-scientific.org/ten-years-after-climategate-time-to-prosecute-michael-mann/
Why Big Oil Conquered the World (2 hr. documentary by James Corbett, sequel to How Big Oil Conquered the World)
Part II of this documentary, beginning at minute 36:40 is entitled, “Oiligarchs for Climate Change”. A discussion of the UNFCCC and the IPCC begins at minute 59.
UN Scientists Who Have Turned on the UN IPCC & Man-Made Climate Fears
