Global Warming: Real or Hoax?

In 1971 there was a paper titled, “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols:  Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate (Rasool 1971).

The paper speculated that if aerosol levels rose 6 to 8 fold, it would trigger an ice age.  A guy named James Hansen developed a computer program that aided the Rasool’s research leading to this conclusion.  No matter how this topic came to be or how much proof one claimed to have, no ice age ever took place.

However, with the fear of an imminent Ice Age, Americans were stressed even more over rising gas prices that started in October of 1973 and continued until March of 1974, bringing prices in some areas over $1.00/gallon.  Gas prices before the 1973 crises were around $0.19/gallon and in some places were just pennies higher or lower.  OAPEC, later changed to just OPEC, is usually blamed for the problems and rightly so as the embargo was essentially the cause of the rise in price.  Considering the minimum wage in 1973 was $1.60 (federal minimum wage), that was a pretty big hit on most families across the nation.  The minimum wage went up to $2.00 in 1974, as the Government attempted to balance out the problems, and it didn‘t seem to help people much as it continued to rise almost every year until the 80‘s where minimum wage stayed consistent at $3.35/hour.  Gas followed, rising consistently between 0.59/gallon and 1.19/gallon, depending on where you lived, seemingly following the minimum wage increases, or vice versa.

With two major problems facing Americans in the early 70’s, rising gas prices along with a fear of an Ice Age, you’d think that was all, but no.   Any American working and paying the bills can’t forget about the stock market crash in 1973-1974.  From Jan. 11^th, 1973 to Dec. 6^th, 1974, the New York Stock Exchange’s Down Jones Industrial Average lost over 45% of its value.  This created the seventh worst bear market in the history of the index.  In nominal terms the crash stopped in Dec. of 1974, but in real terms the U.S. didn’t recover from this until August of 1993.

Now fast forward to the present.  After spending the 80’s and the 90’s with gas consistently between 0.89/gallon and $1.19/gallon, and no Ice Age occurring, the new millennium (beginning about ‘03 & ’04) pushed gas above $2.00/gallon, eventually putting prices in 2012 to between $3.00 – $5.00/gallon (depending on where you are in the nation).  Instead of an Ice Age this time, Al Gore, and other supporters of his movement got rich off of the idea that we were then in threat of Global Warming.  The stock market crash of 2008 (some say late 2007) is still in recovery, and argumentatively not in recovery at all as the economy continues to appear stagnant.  It appears the only real difference from the 1970’s and now is we’ve gone from a possible Ice Age to Global Warming, as the rise in gas and the stock crash sounds all too familiar.

Can anyone say, ’déjà vu’?  As I attempt to wrap my head around what is going on, I can’t help but feel I’m in a bad T.V. version of Back to the Future in which problems of the past are repeated once again in the present!  Nonetheless, Americans are resilient and we continue to press forward, attempting to solve any problem thrown our way.  I can’t help but wonder though if we’re all being manipulated into believing another farce.

Most of the rhetoric about Global Warming comes from the left of the political field, naming Democrats and Liberals as the culprits of the mass hysteria!  So you can imagine my surprise when Denis Rancourt, who is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, recently began speculation about the validity of Global Warming.

Rancourt, who is a left-of-center environmental activist, says that the modern green movement has been essentially high jacked by Global Warming, as cited in his interview with Mark Morano, who is the executive editor of ClimateDepot.com.  Rancourt made headlines back in June 2008 when a labor law arbitrator sided with Rancourt and ruled that “teaching science through social activism is protected by academic freedom.”

“This idea that this Global Warming could actually negatively impact the environment, on its own, is very, very tenuous,” states Rancourt.  “I mean there – I, I see no evidence of that.”  He goes on to say, “It is as much psychological and social a phenomenon as anything else.”

So with Rancourt’s epiphany of sorts, one can’t help but wonder, what is the point of all of this?  If a prominent activist for the Green Movement is questioning the validity of Global Warming, how much truth can there really be in it all?

As Americans are lead to believe that Carbon Monoxide, Coal refineries, and car exhaust is part of the cause of Global Warming, they push for alternative energy sources.  Some of these energy sources being pushed are none other than wind farms.  New research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night, a phenomenon that could put a damper on efforts to expand wind energy as a green energy solution.

The research done shows a correlation between a night-time temperature increase of 0.72 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) and the placement of these wind farms.  They used the data from satellites collected from 2003 – 2011, examining surface temperatures across a swath of west Texas.  This area holds four of the world’s largest wind farms.  So if it’s Carbon that is the problem, and fossil fuels, how could wind farms, which use none of this, be the new culprit?  In 2003 there were just 111 Wind turbines in the area.  In 2011 there were 2,358!  According to Liming Zhou, associate professor at the State University of New York, Albany, “The year-to-year land surface temperature over wind farms shows a persistent upward trend from 2003 to 2011, consistent with the increasing number of operational wind turbines with time.”

Texas is a dry climate that uses irrigation to grow most of its crops.  Therefore increased warming can play havoc with plant growth, as well as change local rainfall patterns.  You can bet the researchers in Texas are very astute to these facts.

While some researchers argue over the effects wind turbines have on Global Warming, I’m reminded of the argument that greenhouse gases do much more than just warm the planet.  Some environmentalists warn: They cause hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, droughts, and even extreme cold spells.

Even these arguments seem suspect to me considering some interesting facts.  The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history was not hurricane Katrina, but rather one that hit Galveston, Tex., more than a century ago, and I don’t remember Global Warming being a topic then.  Furthermore, glaciers are melting around the world, and many worry that will cause flooding. But the melting is not necessarily due to greenhouse gases.  Glacier Bay in Alaska, is a perfect example of natural climate changes.  The glacier was discovered in 1794.  The National Park Service reports that by 1879 the ice had retreated by 30 miles, and by 1916 had melted back by 60 miles; but global warming wasn’t a topic back then.  In New York City, 1780, the rivers around Manhattan had frozen over for 5 weeks.  Throughout the 1800’s the rivers froze over at least six times, yet no Ice Age ever took place, nor was the Greenhouse Gases of Global Warming to blame.

“If we keep putting heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere at current rates, we can expect a city like NYC to go from having less than 10 days over 100F to between 30 and 45 [such days] by the end of the century,” Ekwurzel of the Union for Concerned Scientists told FoxNews.com, citing a government study.  Yet even this fact can be disputed as the deadliest heat wave in U.S. history struck long ago, in 1936, causing some 5,000 deaths nationwide.  Twenty-two of the lower 48 states set their all-time temperature records in the 1930s, with only Arizona setting a new record in the new Millennium.

Finally, if one wants to insist that drought is a consequence of Global Warming, how does one explain the worst drought in U.S. history in the 1930’s, recognized by the phrase, “The Dust Bowl,” forcing as many as 2.5 million Americans to abandoned their farms?  And if we’re experiencing Global Warming now, where is our record breaking drought?

So maybe Dr. Rancourt has a good point in his newly found doubt about Global Warming.  He states, “They look for comfortable lies, uh, that they can settle into and feel good about themselves and alleviate the guilt that they have from being on the privileged end of  the planet.”

No matter what you do believe, or don’t believe, about Global Warming, one cannot ignore the sporadic points of origin and consequence of said phenomena.  Whether it be the crises that once existed in the 1970’s, or our current crises, more and more doubt is being placed on the “Global Warming” theory.  Given all the related problems with this particular issue, gas, food, wages, and the economy, one can’t help but wonder if Global Warming isn’t more of an excuse to manipulate our way of life, rather than a logical and rational explanation for our current woes.

Despite these facts cited in this article, I’m certain the argument will continue and the agenda with continued to be pressed.  Nonetheless, I’ll continue to enjoy the weather as it comes and prepare for major events no differently then I have in the past.  While some Scientists will continue to stand by their claims of Global Warming, other Scientists will continue to dispute them with facts from our past, seemingly contradicting each other.  Politicians will continue to use it as an excuse to pass laws allowing agencies such as the EPA to infringe on our Individual Liberties with intrusive and useless legislation as they begin to penetrate private property through the Health Care Bill.

In my opinion we’ve all been fooled.  We’ve all come full circle with all the arguments, and despite all the discussions over the past ten years plus, we still have no real answers on whether Global Warming is real, or if it’s just a fantastical idea meant to be used against Americans to fool them into handing over their freedom.  Something tells me that in another thirty years we’ll hear a whole new argument about weather.  Maybe then we’ll get some truth?  I mean, third time is a charm, right?