A Two-Sided Coin

Joe Biden said and did a lot of crazy stuff in his four years in the White House.

I don't think any of it was crazier than this statement.

Source:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-10/biden-says-climate-change-poses-greater-threat-than-nuclear-war?embedded-checkout=true

President Joe Biden said the sole threat to humanity’s existence is climate change, and that not even nuclear conflict poses a similar danger.

“The only existential threat humanity faces, even things more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming,” Biden said Sunday during a news conference in Hanoi, Vietnam.

The only existential threat humanity faces is global warming?

Greater than a nuclear holocaust?

How about a few other risks that seem to be much greater threats to humanity than a few degrees of warming that the most pessimistic of climate alarmists predict will occur over the next 75 years.

A pandemic that is 1,000x worse than Covid?

A bioweapon being unleashed on the world (the most likely scenario for a pandemic)?

Birth rates around the world similar to what we are now seeing in South Korea (.72 per woman) that would slowly and inextricably result in the demise of humanity.?

Artificial intelligence running amok?

An asteroid or comet striking the earth?

A super volcanic eruption that would blast enough dust and debris into the atmosphere to block the sun and lead to worldwide crop failures and famine?

Over the years, I have listened to the claims about human created global warming.  Without even spending a lot of time on the science, these claims never seemed to make sense to me.  The planet is known to have warmed and cooled over the years.  

Even if the data shows it is warming, how do we know it is caused by man when you look at past history?  We know there was an ice age.  We also know the ice melted.  How did it ice up? How did the ice melt?

I can't help but be a little skeptical when I also see the changing explanations about the climate.  In fact, it does not even seem to be global warming we are worried about any more, it is climate change.  

We also heard a few years ago that we would see far less snow because of global warming.  When we got more snow, we were then told this was caused by the warming. It is all very confusing for something that is supposed to be so settled in science.

I also remember in the 1970's all of the talk from scientists was concern that the planet was cooling. What happened?  That was only a generation or two ago- a speck of time in the history of the earth.

Source: https://gary-bernstein.medium.com/global-cooling-in-the-1970s-to-global-warming-the-1-5-trillion-climate-industry-b73118b1af8d

When you consider past history you also quickly realize that God dwarfs anything that man can do.  For example, the year 1816 was considered "The Year Without a Summer" after Mount Tambora erupted and the ash seemed to veil the sky across large swaths of earth.  

Crops failed around the world and famine followed.  Riots and political unrest were not far behind. People tend to get really angry when they are hungry.  How much did the average global temperature fall that year? - only about 1 degree!

It is also instructive to look back at what was going on in the world in the 17th century.

I know of two books that were written about this chaotic period of human history.

Global Crisis by Geoffrey Parker.

Nature's Mutiny by Philipp Blom.

Both books suggest that the wars, catastrophes and transformative developments in the 17th century (Pilgrims coming to America, Thirty Years War in Europe, the growth of the British East India Company etc) were shaped in many respects by climate change.

However, the climate change involved was not global warming, it was global cooling that caused longer and harsher winters and cooler and wetter summers. This resulted in disrupted growing seasons that caused famine, malnutrition, death, disease and fewer births.

This period in the 17th Century is now referred to as a Mini Ice Age that saw temperatures fall by just a few degrees compared to historical norms.

The stories about Mount Tambora and 17th Century Europe have always made me much more concerned about global cooling than warming.  A rise in temperatures is actually beneficial for food production.  It can extend the growing season further north. Cooler temperatures do the exact opposite. Given a choice there is little doubt where I come down.

It has been proven time and time again that you are much more likely to see unrest and unruliness in human beings when they are cold and hungry than when they are hot and well fed.

What was the cause of the climate change in the 17th Century?

There is no clear consensus but one theory is that the sun was going through a period with an unusually low number of sun spots leading to a decrease in solar radiation that lowered temperatures.

This period was called the "Maunder Minimum" that persisted through almost all of the 17th Century.

The long term trend today is that sun spot activity has been declining compared to what we saw in most of the 20th Century which is referred to as the "Modern Maximum" period.

Source: https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/1849929751852466545

NOAA is predicting that sun spot activity will likely decline over the next 25 years.

Source: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

In addition to this, the Atlantic ocean has been in a warming cycle the last 40 years but it is predicted that it will move into a cooling cycle beginning in 2025 that will last for 40 years.

The combination of low sun spot activity and a cool cycle for the Atlantic ocean has not been seen since the early 1600's.

Biden, AOC and others who want you to believe global warming is an existential threat to humanity may not be paying attention to these developments but there are those who are deeply involved in the financial and commodity markets that are.

Link: https://x.com/FinanceLancelot/status/1878502375729643916

Some see this combination of factors leading to shorter growing seasons, drought, lower crop yields, food shortages and higher costs for food around the world.

I don't know whether all of this is in our future.

However, it is difficult to not have some questions after witnessing the weather events of January, 2025 to this point.

Consider that temperatures at the North Pole this month are -20C below historical averages..

The arctic cold pushed down through North America with temperatures reaching -25F (-50F wind chill) in Duluth, Minnesota this week. A good part of the Midwest saw sub-zero temperatures.

Pensacola, Florida received 8.9 inches of snow in the storm this week.

That is more than has fallen in that city in the last 124 years COMBINED.

Link: https://x.com/accuweather/status/1882112355557089318

An hour east in Miramar Beach, Florida you could find a snowman on the beach as the sun rose yesterday morning. Six inches of snow fell there during the storm.

Snowfall records were shattered across much of the South.

In fact, this year has seen very few counties in the United States that have not seen any snowfall this winter.

However, it was only a little over a month ago that the NOAA forecast that the southern United States would be warmer than normal as well as have below average precipitation.

Credit: https://x.com/TonyClimate/status/1882083192175485048

This is what actual temperatures have been in January compared to the norms.

Credit: https://x.com/JunkScience/status/1882270963393511895

If weather and climate forecasters can be this far off on a 30 day forecasts how much confidence should we have in predictions of the climate five, ten or twenty years in the future?

This is even more true when it also being suggested we need to spend trillions of dollars to prevent "climate change" based on those forecasts and projections based on "models".

History does show that climate change can have profound effects on human beings and society.

That is not debatable.

However, the real risk is not understanding that there are two sides to that coin.

There is also a profound arrogance is believing that human beings can overcome the forces of nature.

The entire narrative and all of the money is being spent on the assumption that the earth's temperature is rising and we somehow can control the outcome.

All of the chips have been placed on the table based on a single assumption.

What if it proves to be the opposite where the risks to humanity might be many times higher?

We may discover we need all of the fossil fuels we can find just to keep humanity warm and well fed.

The weather over the last two weeks should hopefully cause a few to think a little deeper about this subject.

What might also be true is that the greatest existential threat to humanity are those who believe they know it all.