Who would have thunk it? The most statist GOP President of modern times—-and he’s got considerable company—-just delivered one of the greatest blows to statism ever.
We have welcomed the Donald all along as the Great Disrupter, but yesterday’s Rose Garden haymaker was above and beyond the call of duty. It was vintage Trump—no double-talking mainstream speech-crafter slipped in even a hint of equivocation. Not a single olive branch of accommodation was offered to the ruling elites anywhere on the planet.
To be sure, the whole thing was done in the name of a pugnacious “America First” narrative; and it was delivered by a forceful but unprincipled occupant of the Oval Office who has appointed himself America’s jobs czar.
Needless to say, that’s not the same thing at all as liberating the free market to generate jobs, economic value and true prosperity—-or even to leave the people at liberty to fish, hunt, hike, drink and be merry if they wish. But the Donald’s motivation was a whole lot better than that of the legions of government apparatchiks, liberals, environmental scolds, regulators, globalists, crony capitalists, lobbyists, media megaphones, etc. who were cringing and harrumphing at every word of his magnificent Rose Garden rebuke.
Now more than ever, we are sure that the Donald will be carried out on his shield. But what a glorious battle he promises to give on the way out!
After all, exiting the Paris Accord had nothing much to do with genuine environmental policy; nor was it even really about American jobs for that matter.
Those kinds of policy wonk debates—about parts per million of C02 and the relative number of coal-miner versus solar panel installer jobs—-the ruling elites thrive upon.
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But what they can’t abide is a fundamental assault on the foundations of their statist ideologies. And Trump’s courageous head of state diatribe from the Rose Garden—–which was long-winded and repetitive enough to make Fidel Castro himself envious—- was exactly that.
It was a frontal rejection of the kind of ritualized policy narrative that is concocted over and again by the political class and the permanent nomenklatura of the modern state—professors, think-tankers, lobbyists, career apparatchiks, officialdom—in order to gather and exercise state power.
To paraphrase Randolph Bourne, inventing purported failings of capitalism—-such as a propensity to burn too much hydrocarbon—is the health of the state. Indeed, fabrication of false problems and threats that purportedly can only be solved by heavy-handed state intervention has become the modus operandi of a political class that has usurped near complete control of modern democracy.
Yet all is not lost—–as yesterday’s defining moment so powerfully attests. That is, the ruling elites have been doing this so long with such unimpeded success that they have become sloppy, superficial, careless and dishonest to a fault.
That is to say, the global warming narrative is the most risible manifestation yet of this leap into self-righteous disregard for evidence, logic and plausibility. For when you step back from the shrill, sanctimonious narrative that passes for the global warming catechism, the ridiculousness of its central claim that industrial society is destroying the climatic equipoise of the planet is self-evident.
There never has been equipoise! What there’s been is 4 billion years of wildly oscillating and often violent geologic evolution and climate disequilibrium—-owing to manifold natural causes ranging from plate tectonics to asteroid bombardments, to the succession of Ice Ages and the warming intervals in between.
Even a simple textbook extract from the History Channel reminds us that what may or may not have been happening to the global temperature since it allegedly began rising again around 1980 amounts to a white noise rounding error in the grand scheme of things:
Scientists have recorded five significant ice ages throughout the Earth’s history: the Huronian (2.4-2.1 billion years ago), Cryogenian (850-635 million years ago), Andean-Saharan (460-430 mya), Karoo (360-260 mya) and Quaternary (2.6 mya-present)…..(From the last of these) approximately a dozen major glaciations have occurred over the past 1 million years, the largest of which peaked 650,000 years ago and lasted for 50,000 years. The most recent glaciation period, often known simply as the “Ice Age,” reached peak conditions some 18,000 years ago before giving way to the interglacial Holocene epoch 11,700 years ago.
At the height of the recent glaciation, the ice grew to more than 12,000 feet thick as sheets spread across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and South America.
Corresponding sea levels plunged more than 400 feet, while global temperatures dipped around 10 degrees Fahrenheit on average and up to 40 degrees in some areas. In North America, the region of the Gulf Coast states was dotted with the pine forests and prairie grasses that are today associated with the northern states and Canada…..
Among these causes of sweeping climate change is one that most reasonably attentive school boys can even remember from their textbook diagrams. That is, the images of the earth’s orbit elongating and then rounding over approximate 100,000 year intervals (eccentricity) with its obvious implications for temperature at the elliptical extremes; and also the facts that the earth’s rotation wobbles (precession) and that the tilt of its axis changes over time (obliquity) in something like 40,000 year cycles.
To be sure, the scientific debates still rage as to which of these three monumental planetary forces drive climate cycles and the precise mechanics, durations and climatic oscillations of the periodic Ice Ages; and also as to how these solar-focussed forces are complimented by other large natural climate drivers such as plate tectonics.
Still, compared to the relatively tiny contribution of carbon emissions from the 400 million cars or so on the planet’s surface to the already fractional role of carbon in the atmosphere (o.037%), we’ll take the unders on the wonders of the natural universe. Thus, as the History Channel tutorial further observes,
The second important figure in the development of these studies was Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitch. Seeking to chart the Earth’s temperature from the past 600,000 years, Milankovitch carefully calculated how orbital variations such as eccentricity, precession and axial tilt affected solar radiation levels, publishing his work in the 1941 book Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem. Milankovitch’s findings were corroborated when technological improvements in the 1960s allowed for the analyzation of deep sea ice cores and plankton shells, which helped pinpoint periods of glaciation.
Along with solar radiation levels, it is believed that global warming and cooling is connected to plate tectonic activity. The shifting of the Earth’s plates creates large-scale changes to continental masses, which impacts ocean and atmospheric currents, and triggers volcanic activity that releases carbon dioxide into the air.
This much reasonably educated people have known all along. But now that the Donald has shattered the mold, perhaps the ragged case of the global warming fear-mongers can presently be taken apart limb for limb, as it deserves.
If debunking global warming orthodoxy becomes contagious, in fact, perhaps even greater secrets will be revealed.
To wit, much of today’s statist orthodoxy about other interventionist causes—such as the alleged need for monetary central planning, progressive taxation and income redistribution or even Pax Americana—-are mainly self-serving inventions, concoctions and lies. They are designed to keep the foot of the state firmly on the neck of free markets, free citizens and all the associated accoutrements of liberty.
In any event, anyone with a working knowledge of geology, archeology and human history undoubtedly suspected the following but here it is. We are probably sitting at one of the cooler spells in the last 15,000 years. While the latter comprises a mere spec of time in the planet’s natural history, the important point here is that it has more or less been getting warmer—on an irregular basis—since the peak of the last ice age 21,000 years ago.
As is evident from the chart, there have also been intervals in which average temperatures spiked lower. Mini ice ages, as it were. And those documented colder spells—- from ice core samples, ocean sediment readings and other techniques— are extremely import backdrops for the current global warming hysteria.
Undoubtedly what is happening at present, in fact, is that the planet has been modestly rebounding from one of the most recent of these colder spell anomalies.
This one is known as the Little Ice Age (LIA) or Maunder Minimum. The latter bottomed around 1600 to 1750, and quite evidently opened up a lot of room for an upward trending regression to the Holocene Era’s general warming norm.
Moreover, the above graph is not merely some kind of “climate deniers” trick based on disputed or anomalous conditions in Greenland. The above is normally dismissed by the global warmers, in fact, as a mere “regional aberration” to be ignored—-given its obvious inconsistency with the approved global warming catechism.
Then again, there’s this. That is, evidence of the Medieval and earlier warming periods taken from soil carbon measurements on the Great Plains.
And if the Great Plains are too close to Greenland—–just 3,000 miles—to escape the “regional” epithet, there is always this evidence taken from the southern hemisphere and the deep ocean waters of the Indo-Pacific Warm pool. There, too, the Roman and Medieval warmings are more than evident, as is the Little Ice Age temperature plunge.
Even readings taken from South African caves point to the same story. It was not the global auto fleet or coal-fired power plants at work during the 3,000 year span shown below. When the Hellenic and Roman cultures were first flowering, in fact, it was fortunately warmer than now.
Indeed, we are inclined to say, stop right there! The ballyhooed threat that global temperatures will soar if Al Gore and his anti-carbon Gestapo do not get their way is about as context-free and historically ignorant as it gets.
This typical squib from the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Trump announcement shows not the slightest recognition that the purported planet saving temperature gain from the Paris Accord is nothing special at all. It’s happened over and again during geologic time—even multiple times during the most recent interglacial cycle.
The agreement aims to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels.
So let us repair further to the textbooks to drive this crucial point home with respect to the most recent geologic era—-the period during which modern human settlements and societies also arose.
Warming of Earth and glacial retreat began about 14,000 years ago (12,000 BC). The warming was shortly interrupted by a sudden cooling at about 10,000 – 8500 BC known as the Younger-Dryas. The warming resumed by 8500 BC. The younger-dryas event is significant because it shows that even during an otherwise tranquil period (the current interglacial), rapid climate shifts can still occur. You should know the important points listed at the bottom of this Younger– Dryas Page.
By 5000 to 3000 BC average global temperatures reached their maximum level during the Holocene and were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Climatologists call this period either the Climatic Optimum or the Holocene Optimum.
During the climatic optimum many of the Earth’s great ancient civilizations began and flourished. In Africa, the Nile River had three times its present volume, indicating a much larger tropical region. 6,000 years ago the Sahara was far more fertile than today and supported large herds of animals, as evidenced by the Tassili N’Ajjer frescoes of Algeria (right).
You should be familar with the name, timing, and significance to human civilization for the Climatic or Holocene Optimum. Interestingly, you will notice that events labeled “optimum” correspond to relatively warm periods.
From 3000 to 2000 BC a cooling trend occurred. This cooling caused large drops in sea level and the emergence of many islands (Bahamas) and coastal areas that are still above sea level today.
A short warming trend took place from 2000 to 1500 BC, followed once again by colder conditions. Colder temperatures from 1500 – 750 BC caused renewed ice growth in continental glaciers and alpine glaciers, and a sea level drop of between 2 to 3 meters below present day levels.
The period from 750 BC – 800 AD saw warming up to 150 BC. Temperatures, however, did not get as warm as the Climatic Optimum. During the time of Roman Empire (150 BC – 300 AD) a cooling began that lasted until about 900 AD, although Global average temperature remained relatively warm until about 600 AD. From 600-900 AD (The “Dark Ages”), global average temperatures were significantly colder than today. At its height, the cooling caused the Nile River (829 AD) and the Black Sea (800-801 AD) to freeze.
The period 1100 – 1300 AD has been called either the Little Climatic Optimum or the Medieval Warm Period. It represents the warmest climate since the Climatic Optimum.
During this period, the Vikings established settlements on Greenland and Iceland. The snow line in the Rocky Mountains was about 370 meters above current levels.
A period of cool and more extreme weather followed the Little Climatic Optimum. There are records of floods, great droughts and extreme seasonal climate fluctuations up to the 1400s. Horrendous floods devastated China in 1332 (reported to have killed several million people).
A great drought in the American southwest occurred between 1276 and 1299. During this period occurred the abandonment of settlements in the Southwest United States, including those in Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. Tree ring analysis has identified a period of “no” rain between 1276 and 1299 in these areas.
The cold winters of the little Ice Age were recorded in Dutch and Flemish paintings such as Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-69).
From 1550 to 1850 AD global temperatures were at their coldest since the beginning of the Holocene. Scientists call this period the Little Ice Age.
During the Little Ice Age, the average annual temperature of the Northern Hemisphere was about 1 degree Celsius lower than today.
Extreme weather during this period might have played an important role in the genesis of the Black Death (bubonic plague).
The Little Ice Age was not continuously cold: the 13th-14th centuries were cold; followed by an interval of more favorable conditions; then a return of more severe weather mid 16th-mid 19th centuries.
During the period 1580 to 1600, the western United States experienced one of its longest and most severe droughts in the last 500 years. Cold weather in Iceland from 1753 and 1759 caused 25% of the population to die from crop failure and famine. Newspapers in New England were calling 1816 the year without a summer.
You should know the information and points made below about the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. For theses events we have very nice written historical records.
During the Medieval warm period (1100-1300 AD), global average temperatures were only 1°C (or less) warmer than in 1900, but in Europe the Vikings established a colony on Greenland (where) farming was productive (and has not been possible again since that time). Grape vines were grown in England and wheat was grown in Norway (64° North latitude)—also not possible at present.
At end of period, the Viking colony was lost to sea ice expansion, and the remaining settlers’ last winter turned out to be one of rampant cannibalism as archeologists have documented with respect to the remains of the settlement pictured below.
During the Little ice age (1550-1850 AD), global average temperatures were only 1°C (or less) cooler than in 1900, but in Europe glaciers re-advanced down mountains (valley houses in the Swiss Alps were covered) and canals in Holland froze for three months straight. This rarely occurred before or after this period. Agricultural productivity dropped significantly, even becoming impossible in parts of northern Europe.
This brings us to the climatic Piltdown Mann—named for one Michael Mann, newly minted PhD in 1998 who became the IPCC’s lead investigator and advocate for what famously became the “hockey stick” proof of global warming.
While we intend to address in greater detail in Part 2 the pure fraud involved in the image that Al Gore made famous in his propagandistic tour de force called “An Inconvenient Truth” in 2006, suffice it here to say that the purpose of the hockey stick was to wipe out all of the evidence summarized above.
In lieu of the planet’s long-term and recent climate oscillations came an entirely opposite proposition. Namely, that for the millennium before 1900, global temperatures were nearly flat as a board.
Accordingly, only when the industrial age got a head of steam and reached full force after 1950 did today’s warming temperatures first appear, or so it was alleged. The suggestion, of course, was that an uncontrolled temperature breakout to the upside was well underway and that a planetary disaster was just around the corner.
The only problem is the Mann’s graph was as phony as the Piltdown Man that was confected in England in 1912 and conveniently “discovered” by an amateur anthropologist who claimed it was the missing link in human evolution. At length, it was shown that the fossil consisted of a modern human cranium and an orangutan jaw with filed-down teeth.
Another Hoax: Depiction of Piltdown Man
In this case, Mann and his accomplices at the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) doctored the evidence, used misleading data from Southwestern US tree rings in lieu of abundant alternative data showing the contrary, and jiggered their computer models to generate pre-conceived results.
That is, the models were goal-seeked by Mann and his associates to prove the manmade warming thesis. In essence, it was accomplished by simply pasting modern temperature records showing a steady increases on top of a pre-industrial baseline that never happened.
The latter is depicted by the yellow area in the graph for the period 1400-1900. The hockey stick like eruption of the yellow space after 1900, of course, allegedly depicts the man-made temperature rise since the onset of the hydrocarbon age.
By contrast, the corrected version is in blue. There is no hockey stick because the shaft was invented by computer model manipulations, not extracted from the abundant scientific data bases on which the Mann study was allegedly based.
More importantly, when the most recent past is put in context, the whole hockey stick disappears entirely.
At the outset, we suggested that there was more to the Donald’s haymaker than a mere challenge to the Paris Accord or even the possibility that the essential hoax behind it will now become more thoroughly exposed.
In fact, the Paris Accord is an ideological totem worshipped by mainstream statists so fanatically that their initial reaction to the Donald’s haymaker was more than telling. Said the insufferable Fareed Zakaria on CNN within hours of the exit announcement:
“This means America has given up leadership of the free world”.
We are inclined to ask for a map of the “free” versus “unfree” parts of the current global array of nation-states, but for now let’s just settle for the abandonment of “leadership” part of Zakaria’s charge.
When we consider the calamitous ruin—-broken states, destroyed cities, lifeless economies, millions of destitute, homeless refugees— that blanket the territories from the Hindu Kush through the entire middle east to the suburbs of Tripoli, we are inclined to say what demented form of group think would possibly call that “leadership”.
The Hindu ascetic and leader of India’s liberation from the British Empire, Mahatma Gandhi, was asked what he thought of western civilization after his victorious struggle had ended in 1947. He famously replied, “It would be a good idea”.
It was also be a “good idea” to stop talking about Imperial Washington’s destructive “leadership” of the free world. At least that discussion the Donald got started in the Rose Garden, too.
As to the feigned ignominy of acceding leadership of the world to China, we will wait for the Red Ponzi’s impending crash to resolve the matter. In any event, it would appear that when it comes to leadership of the current statist world order, China is already there.
The Donald got that one right, too.
