As I write this, I am dumbfounded by how someone I respected in my youth, a West Point educated career U.S. Army officer and current civil engineer, could fall for a conspiracy theory. Here is someone who is well educated, and one of the smartest people I have ever met, and he believes an article with the headline, “Solar Cycle To Cause A ‘Mini Ice Age’ As Early As 2020.” The website in question, Principia-Scientific International (which I will not link and give them traffic) is nothing more than a conspiracy site—it took me all of about a minute to research the website and confirm my suspicions that it was passing out false information.
We live on a warming planet, warming caused by human activity. The has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is not something you believe in, it is not something that is up for debate. The science is solid, and the facts are not up for debate. The question that should have been answered 20 or more years ago is, “What are we going to do about it?”
Instead, we have let deniers control the conversation, the fact that deniers are actually given a seat at the table is astonishing.
The science behind climate change is very clear, it has nothing to do with solar activity, manipulated data, lizard people, the molten core of the earth, magnetic poles changing position, a Chinese hoax or any other cockamamie conspiracy theory. The facts, are indisputable:
The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution began. In the case of carbon dioxide, the average concentration measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has risen from 316 parts per million (ppm) in 1959 (the first full year of data available) to 396 ppm in 2013. The same rates of increase have since been recorded at numerous other stations worldwide. Since pre-industrial times, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased by 40%, methane has increased by about 150%, and nitrous oxide has increased by roughly 20%. More than half of the increase in CO2 has occurred since 1970. Increases in all three gases contribute to warming of Earth, with the increase in CO2 playing the largest role.
It should go without saying, but studies have proven that this is a man-made phenomena that started with the Industrial Revolution.
Ice core records extending back 800,000 years show that during that time, CO2 concentrations remained within the range of 170 to 300 ppm throughout many ‘ice age’ cycles and no concentration above 300 ppm is seen in ice core records until the past 200 years.
The science is solid, and has been proven. To argue that this is caused by sunspots, or that the “maunder minimum” is going to cause a little Ice Age in 2020 is dishonest, and downright irresponsible, especially if trying to base it on the flawed science that the previous little Ice Age was caused by a maunder minimum when the scientific data does not back that up.
The onset of the Little Ice Age also occurred well before the beginning of the Maunder minimum, and northern-hemisphere temperatures during the Maunder minimum were not significantly different from the previous 80 years, suggesting a decline in solar activity was not the main causal driver of the Little Ice Age.
Climate change is a man-made problem. There should be no debate on that. If the problem is man-made, then man can also fix the problem. Step one should be shutting down the deniers and skeptics. They are the snake oil salesmen of our day. Selling us something we don’t need, and that will do us more harm then good. Step two, get deniers out of political offices. Vote them out. Step three, realize this is not an American problem, a European problem, or an Asian problem, it is a world problem, and the only way to fix it is for the world to work together on it. Statements like this, are not helpful:
All nations, rich and poor need to come together and find a solution for man-made climate change. Like it or not, right or wrong, the United States has always been looked upon as a world leader. Right now, due to our nation’s current leadership—we are doing nothing to end what is the greatest threat known to mankind. We have left a void at the top. Instead of moving away from fossil fuels, we have a president that loves coal, and does not have the intelligence to understand that this is not just a problem for the United States.
We should be investing in solar, wind, hydro-electric, and other clean power sources. Instead we have an administration that is so thin skinned it removes electric car subsidies because GM is closing manufacturing plants.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the Trump administration wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items, including renewable energy sources.
That is not the kind of forward thinking we need. We need to invest in our future, one without fossil fuels. If we don’t, we will not have much of a future left.