Last year’s Paris Conference on Climate change has focused the world’s attention on global warming. Especially Canadians, who are wondering when exactly it will get here, already.
Trusted celebrities have issued warnings that we must act now for the sake of our children’s future environment. However, I don’t think the children really care that much, given the condition of their rooms.
Even the most casual observer would have to concede that the environment is all around us. However, the sad truth is that mankind actually knows very little about the environment. For example, a number of years ago, I observed the shifting of the tides with my family. I asked my children if they knew what causes the tides. They didn’t know! (See above, re mankind knowing so little about the environment).
I told them, “I’ll give you a hint. It comes out at night.”
“The owls!” My son shouted. Owls indeed.
It is often said that the only constant in this world is change. But it is also said that the more things change the more they stay the same. It is also said that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And yet we see in financial markets a proliferation of hedge funds. So which is it? Who are we to believe?
Much of the data behind environmental changes comes from the Climate Research Institute at the University of East Anglia. However, this institute is in England, where the weather is terrible anyway. Another respected authority is NASA. But as a space agency, they already have one foot out the door, so how can we trust them?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released their seminal statement in Geneva on July 29th, 2014. It represented the most up to date research on environmental trends. Predictably, it reported a warming trend. This is not surprising given that the report was issued in July. Based on my own experience, I can assure the panel members that the world began to cool again in November.
One way that scientists investigate climate change is to examine ice cores from Greenland and other convention boondoggle sites. Supposedly, the cores support the theory of a warming trend over the last century. However, the researchers fail to mention in their reports that all these core samples are cold – ice cold. So how could they possibly be used as evidence of warming?
These same researchers tell us that there has been a decline in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica and shrinkage of the Arctic ice cap. If these scientists had been examining conditions at home, where things really matter, they would know that ice is freely available in grocery stores, gas stations and motels (usually on the second floor), which certainly evens things out.
Climate change denial deniers tell us that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by 43% over the last 150 years. They contend that the gas acts like a blanket, keeping the earth warmer. This is wrong-headed on two counts. First, Dutch experiments have proven that if gas is released under a blanket, the cover will immediately be flung open and then fanned to expel the gas, creating a cooling effect. Second, when people are hot, they consume fizzy drinks, which are full of carbon dioxide.
Even if one concedes that there has been an increase in greenhouse gases, is it necessarily the result of human activity? A cursory search of the Internet revealed numerous images of dogs driving. These pooches would like nothing better than to see warmer, rising seas, and a cool set of wheels to get to the beach. Human beings in the meantime are left holding the bag, and the stick, which they are compelled to throw into the water for their dogs over and over.
Statisticians, or at least 79% of them, have presented us with the now famous “hockey stick” graph. This purports to show that global temperatures have been pretty constant throughout most of human history (represented by the shaft of the stick), but since the industrial revolution, there has been a dramatic upswing in temperature (represented by the stick blade). This is known as an “ad hoc” argument. This is a Latin phrase which means that one “adds hockey” to the discussion. Well, if that is the path that these eggheads choose to meander down, they are not going to like where it ends up. Here are some uncomfortable questions these climate warm-mongers are going to have to answer. If the world is getting warmer, how is it that professional ice hockey is being played farther and farther south? How do they explain the Florida Panthers, the Dallas Stars and the Phoenix Coyotes? For that matter, consider baseball, which is a warm-weather sport. In 2004, the Montreal Expos were forced to relocate south in Washington, D.C. In fact, over the last ten years, the number of Canadian teams in Major League Baseball declined by 50%! Where are the missing boys of summer in this Brave New Warmth?
This leaves us with the rising level of the seas. Scientists claim that sea levels have risen 17 cm (or 6.7 inches) over the past century. This I cannot refute, as I have seen it myself (see above under Tides, Owls, causes of). Indeed, as one ventures farther out into any body of water, the level does seem to rise precipitously. However, climatologists claim that the elevated levels are due to warming of the oceans. They tell us that there has been an increase of 0.3 degrees Celsius since 1969. Could this be true? Well, thank you very much, but I will still bring a blanket to the beach – a real blanket, not one of those scientific gas-blankets. But assuming that it was true, it would be impossible for such a temperature differential to cause the oceans to rise.
This fact can be proven with a very simple experiment. Place a pot on the stove and fill it 2/3 of the way with water. Add two tablespoons of salt and add spinach and some goldfish to simulate marine conditions. Mark the water level with an indelible black marker. Now turn the stove element up to 0.3 degrees Celsius. Wait one hour. Come back and check the water level. Has it changed? Not one millimeter. Come back in two hours, in two weeks, in two years. The only difference will be two dead goldfish floating in your pot due to the callousness of climate scientists. Now go into your garden and retrieve a handful of rocks. Pour the rocks into the pot. Has the water level risen? You bet your lifejacket it has. And this brings us to the crux of the matter. The oceans are rising, but not for the reasons offered by the scientists. What are they trying to hide?
Let’s ask ourselves, what do rocks (even cold rocks) have that makes the water level rise? Mass and volume. Now where do you suppose we might find an increase in mass and volume in this world? It’s all around you: In your neighborhoods, in the malls, and especially at amusement parks. Like Soylent Green, it’s people.
In 1965, 13% of Americans were obese. From 1980 to 2002, obesity rates doubled. By 2007, 33% of men and 36% of women in America were obese. The Lancet has reported that worldwide, the number of overweight and obese people has increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013; an increase of 145%. All those fat people are weighing down the continents and causing the oceans to rise. Consider that the average ideal weight for an adult male is 70 kg, and that the average male’s weight now is 89 kg. That means that there is an excess of 40 billion kg or 88 billion pounds. That’s a lot of stones in the pot.
The fact that excess weight is the true cause of rising sea levels is attested to by the “solutions” proffered by environmentalists. In strategic areas all across the world, eco-engineers have erected wind turbines. Their supposed purpose is to produce clean energy. But every schoolchild knows that propellers cause things to fly. The scientists are attempting to offset the extra weight on our landmasses by lifting the continental plates by means of wind power. Elsewhere, there is a scramble to offset the fattening crowd. Blimps are dispatched to any stadium where 50,000 or more fans congregate. Under the guise of “fracking”, gas is being pumped under the Earth’s crust to keep it afloat. This cover-up is likely financed by Big Sugar, Big Corn Syrup, and Big Everybodyelse.
So what are we to do? Continue to build industrial pinwheels, tether zeppelins to the heartland, and pump air into Atlas’ tires? Eventually these measures will fail. We will get fatter and fatter. The cables holding the dirigibles will snap and thousands of luft-balloons will escape. The bolts holding down the turbines will fail and the windmills will fly off like dandelion fluff. The continents will plunge, squeezing out all the gas from under them in a geo-cataclysmic fart. The oceans will swamp the earth, and life, as we know it, will become quite moist.
Can we complain? We humans have had quite a good run here on Earth. Unfortunately, we were victims of our own success, or rather excess. It was great and delicious while it lasted. We should be grateful. Still a tear comes to my eye, as I look at the sandcastle that my children have built and watch helplessly as the sea engulfs its ramparts and it dissolves. Damn owls!
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Stephen Starr is a physician and writer. His work has appeared in Response, Doctor’s Review, The Medical Post, Defenestration, and Hobo Pancakes. He keeps his stuff in Victoria, BC.