Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, from Chapter IX
Thanks to Robert Schwartz for passing on this excerpt from Chapter IX: The State of Germany till the Invasion of the Barbarians, in the Time of the Emperor Decius (around 250BC) of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon originally published in 1776. The so-called Roman Warm Period peaked around 100-200 AD and was followed by a rapid cooling reported here. At the time of Gibbon’s work (1776), Europe had emerged from the “Maunder Minimum - Little Ice Age” but as the author noted land use changes may have played some role in the relative warmth. Even then historians were noting the importance of land use changes on climate as Roger Pielke Sr. has been documenting.
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Some ingenious writers have suspected that Europe was much colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm their theory. The general complaints of intense frost and eternal winter, are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature.
1. The great rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that severe season for their inroads, transported, without apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. Modern ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon.
2. The reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage of the North derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of the Pole; he seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and Siberia: but at present he cannot subsist, much less multiply, in any country to the south of the Baltic. In the time of Caesar the reindeer, as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a native of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of Germany and Poland. The modern improvements sufficiently explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. These immense woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the earth the rays of the sun. The morasses have been drained, and, in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of ancient Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the finest provinces of France and England, that country experiences the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and the great river of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice. Read more here.
By Bob Webster, Web Commentary
The only useful measure of the value of journalism is the degree to which an article informs the public with objective truth. On that basis, the recent article by ABC (Global Warming Denier: Fraud or ‘Realist’? Physicist Says Humans Will Benefit From Warmer Planet - Dan Harris, Felicia Biberica, Elizabeth Stuart and Nils Kongshaug contributed to this report.) scores an abysmal zero.
The article begins, His fellow scientists call him a fraud, a charlatan and a showman ... which is neither true nor objective. Further, it is a smear as it fails to identify any of the claimed “fellow scientists” (how very convenient!). The article continues: Singer, an 84-year-old Princeton-trained physicist, is the grandfather of the global warming skeptics who dispute the established scientific consensus that global warming is real, that it is caused by the pollution humans are pumping into the atmosphere, and that it will be catastrophic if measures are not taken immediately.
Why is age important here? Is ABC’s intent to put Dr. Singer in a box labeled “old fool”? If so, then it’s failed to consider that his age suggests wisdom and subject-matter knowledge far beyond that evidenced by the writers of this article. While Dr. Singer is certainly a key player in the scientific effort to inject perspective and sanity into the global warming issue, I suggest the characterization of Dr. Singer as the “grandfather of the global warming skeptics” is inaccurate because the truth is (that terribly inconvenient “truth") that real science, historic climate, and the scientific method are the principal foundation upon which skepticism of the IPCC/Gore theory are built. As a scientist (mathematician) who has had a strong fascination and interest in both meteorology and climatology for over 50 years, I have studied paleoclimatology and earth sciences throughout my adult life. As anyone with a similar background in the scientific method and scientific inquiry would understand, virtually any nominal interest and associated knowledge in these areas is sufficient to cast serious doubt on the theories professed by policymakers of the IPCC and Mr. Gore that Dan Harris supports. Then there is the inconvenient science that completely debunks the unsustainable conclusions of the IPCCs Summary Reports (note that March 1, 2007 through February 29, 2008 was the coldest global 12 months in many decades, losing nearly 1 degree C).
The paragraph under scrutiny also contains several conjectures that are simply not true. First, of course, being that Dr. Singer is the “grandfather” of skeptics when, in fact, science and truth are the grandfather of skeptics. Second is the brazen statement that there is “scientific consensus” that humans are causing global warming. That is an oft-repeated claim whose veracity is simply not reflected in any true assessment of the positions of subject-matter experts (i.e., those trained in climatology, meteorology, and/or atmospheric science). Next is the totally unsupportable claim that human “pollution” pumped into the atmosphere will cause catastrophic warming. First, climate warming has historically been associated with advances in human civilization (the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period, and the Medieval warm period - each of which were warmer than anything we’ve experienced in the 20th-21st centuries - are all testimony to that truth). When climate cools, civilization struggles. Witness the demise of settlers of Greenland (no longer “green"). It is preposterous to claim that greater plant yields, longer growing seasons, and more benign weather will increase human strife. Would ABC prefer lesser plant yields, shorter growing seasons, and more severe cold?
ABC’s story is a classic case of disinformation, distortion, smearing, and journalistic abuse. It is a shining example of why our Fourth Estate has become the new Fifth Column. It is virtually devoid of any truth. It is presented with a highly biased viewpoint. It is close-minded. It is, quite frankly, mere propaganda. The complete lack of scientific credentials of anyone named in the story (other than Dr. Singer) or any of the story’s authors, demonstrates the ABC story is a fraud. Read much more here.
By Dan Gainor, Boone Pickens Free Market Fellow, Business and Media Institute
Pity poor Al Gore. The former presidential candidate has a trophy room Tiger Woods would envy. He’s got the Nobel Peace Prize, an Emmy, even an Oscar. But much like his failed presidential campaign, Gore can’t win the big game. Gore’s big game is climate change. He’s been trying to force America to embrace his apocalyptic vision for years and Americans still don’t agree. His failure is almost stunning - like Woods losing at miniature golf.
He’s been completely set up for an easy victory: The mainstream media long ago fully embraced everything he says about global warming. They rarely even give anyone a chance to present a different view. By Gore’s own calculation, people who oppose his global warming consensus “are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view.” He told “60 Minutes” March 30 that those who dare to challenge him are “almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona, and those who believe the Earth is flat.”
There are so few of them that Gore is committing $300 million to convince them he is right. That’s right. Gore is such a pathetic pitchman that even with the entire global news media on his side; he still has to pay $300 million to buy ads to further hector Americans about our lifestyles. The new campaign is called The We Campaign. Three hundred million dollars. The ad agency that brought us the Geico Gecko and the Caveman. And all they come up with is a campaign that sounds like an old “Bugs Bunny” cartoon complete with a “We” flag. See post here.
See what Limbaugh had to say in this excerpt.
By Mike Church, Sirius Satellite Radio
Democrats running for President and those residing in their easy chairs in Congress, took time out from the hard work of proclaiming National Harriet Tubbs Week and keel halued the CEO’s of “Big Oil” companies today, publicly humiliating them and their “windfall Profits”. They are really keelhauling YOU and me.
Gas prices are at historic highs because demand is at historic highs and these same polar bear hugging loons have forbidden in increase in the supply. As the accompanying graphic shows “Big Oil” profits as a % of gas sales are about 1/4 of what the same loons, call them the hydrocarbon mafia, take. Why not put Congress on trial instead?
With an assist from those loveable but smelly, bark humping weirdoes at the Sierra Club, we have been lied to and court ordered into not building new gas refineries in the U.S.A. Not one has not been built since Pamela Sue Anderson played Nancy Drew on ABC (1977). Is it fair to conclude that we could get along with the amount of Cell Phone Towers we had in 1977 or 1987 or 1997? No?
If the U.S. Senate’s Lieberman-Warner CO2 - Cap And Trade scheme were implemented to “cut our greenhouse gas emissions and trade the excess” (that means sentencing 3rd world people’s to electricity depraved lives and certain death in many instances) the results would be staggering but hey, you gotta go green right my friends? (When John McCain lectures me about global warming he is NOT my friend).
You were supposed to promote awareness of the Climate Crisis by turning your lights off for an hour, thereby not consuming electricity and extending Earth’s stay on Climate CPR by 60 minutes. This reminds me that North Korea’s Kim Jong Il should be in line to succeed Al Gore at the Nobel Prize Awards, his “green collar jobs” program is going so well, the whole country goes dark every night! So cheer up America and celebrate $7.00 a gallon gasoline, gas lines, rolling brownouts and yes falling temperatures you have earned the privilege of experiencing witch burnings and plagues in person. Welcome to the new old dark Ages. Welcome to truly becoming green. Read more and see chart here.
Editorial, Investors Business Daily
Al Gore says that those of us who are skeptical that man is warming the planet have a flat-Earth mind-set. But if Gore would open his mind, he’d learn that more than likely the opposite is true. In Sunday’s appearance on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Gore tells reporter Lesley Stahl that the skeptics of man-made global warming are “almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat.” “That demeans them a little bit,” he says, “but it’s not that far off.”
In addition to being gratingly sanctimonious, Gore is wrong. A study conducted by Texas A&M professors found that the more Americans know about global warming, the more likely they are to dismiss it. The study was no put-up job by oil interests. It was conducted by Paul M. Kellstedt, a Texas A&M associate professor of political science, who said the findings that were “just the opposite” of what they were expected out to be. Co-authors were Arnold Vedlitz, the Bob Bullock chair in government and public policy at A&M’s George Bush School of Government and Public Service, and Sammy Zahran, now an assistant professor of sociology at Colorado State University. That sociologists tend to back candidates from the Democratic Party, such as Gore, is no secret. But the Nobel Prize/Oscar winner isn’t running this time. He has, however, been nominated by columnist Joe Klein, who wrote in Time magazine last week that Gore would be “the answer to the Democratic Party’s dilemma” that has been created by the Clinton-Obama brawl. To Klein’s suggestion we say: Run, Al, run. His candidacy would let us get this global warming issue aired out so we can finally be done with it. Maybe then the country will think back to this weekend’s asinine Earth Hour, when we were all expected to turn off our lights, and realize it was a metaphor for the darkness that global warming alarmists have been operating under. Read more here.
ENS News Service
Climate Scientist James Hansen Honored for Speaking Truth to Power
James Hansen, a federal government scientist who has spoken out about human influence on the global climate despite political pressure to alter his message, is the recipient of the 2007 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility given by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, AAAS. The award was established in 1980 and is approved by the AAAS Board of Directors. The award, which carries a $5,000 prize, was presented Saturday, at the 2008 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston. The AAAS award citation credits Hansen for “his outspoken advocacy on behalf of scientists’ responsibilities to communicate openly and honestly with the public on matters of importance to their health and welfare.”
In a memo supporting Hansen’s selection, the award committee wrote that he “has faced pressure, and sometimes outright opposition, from highly placed individuals in the past four administrations” who have urged him to alter his message in one direction or another. See this latest embarassment for the once great AAAS.
Read here in this ludicrous interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now with Hansen how he claims he has been suppressed from voicing his opinion. See how much coverage Hansen has really received in recent years.
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Source is in the story Technocracy versus Democratic Control by Roger Pielke Jr.
Hansen has received $250,000 from the Heinz Foundation (Kerry’s wife), $500,000 from the David Foundation. These rewards go to the man who helped open the grant money spigots for the universities, environmental groups and now governments and some corporations. Ironically his movement may send all the rest of us to the poor house.
Update: And also note how he is spreading his evangelism to other continents encouraguing a moratorium on coal fired power plants in Australia in this letter to Prime Ministeer Rudd and in the UK in this letter to Prime Minister Brown.
As an e-mailer to Icecap so wisely said tonight “Science Minus Scrutiny = Dogma”.
By the Hudson Institute in the Sun Herald
Icecap Update: See three of the letters sent to ABC News admonishing them for their vicious attack on Dr. Fred Singer here. The network received well over 100 emails invariably attacking them for their shoddy journalism. They are following in the footsteps of Newsweek where their own CEO had to come out and apologize for his own staff’s stupidity.
At the end of 2006, climate scientist S. Fred Singer of the University of Virginia and the Science & Environmental Policy Project and Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute co-authored Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, a New York Times non-fiction bestseller. Yesterday, ABC’s World News Sunday anchor Dan Harris aired a harsh attack on Dr. Singer in a segment titled “Global Warming Denier: Fraud or ‘Realist’?”
Avery, Director of Hudson’s Center for Global Food Issues, declares, “It seems likely that ABC attacked Singer now because the earth has apparently stopped warming—in defiance of the man-made warming theory.” The earth’s surface temperatures have registered no warming trend since 1998, even though the levels of atmosphere CO2 have continued to increase strongly. In 2000, the sunspot numbers turned downward, which historically has predicted a decline in the earth’s temperatures roughly a decade later. The sunspot indices have continued to predict cooling ever since.
Last month, three of the world’s major monitoring sites announced that earth’s temperatures actually declined from January 2007 to January 2008—the first such global temperature drop in 30 years. The Hadley Centre in the UK, NASA, and the University of Alabama/Huntsville all reported the decline. Josh Willis, a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, recently told National Public Radio that the oceans had stopped warming 4-5 years ago, based on key information from new high-tech ocean buoys.
The embarrassing truth is that the weak correlation between earth’s temperatures and human-emitted greenhouse gases is rapidly worsening. The CO2 correlation with earth’s thermometer record since 1860 is less than 22 percent. The correlation between earth temperatures and sunspots is 79 percent and strengthening. “It seems likely that if the earth’s temperatures continue to defy the ‘global warming consensus’ there will be more attacks on those who study the physical evidence of the earth’s previous warmings,” says Avery. Read more here
By Investors Business Daily
Computer models used by environmentalists predict imminent and disastrous climate change. But actual temperature measurements by high-tech equipment show something completely different. As Lorne Gunter reported Monday in Canada’s National Post, the first of 3,000 new automated ocean buoys were deployed in 2003. They amounted to a significant improvement over earlier buoys that took their measurements mostly at the ocean’s surface.
The new buoys, known as Argos, drift along the oceans at a depth of about 6,000 feet constantly monitoring the temperature, salinity and speed of ocean currents. Every 10 days or so a bladder inflates, bringing to the surface readings taken at various depths. Once on the surface, they transmit their readings to satellites that retransmit them to land-based computers. The Argos buoys have disappointed the global warm-mongers in that they have failed to detect any signs of imminent climate change. As Dr. Josh Willis, who works for NASA in its Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted in an interview with National Public Radio, “there has been a very slight cooling” over the buoys’ five years of observation, but that drop was “not anything really significant.” Certainly not enough to shut down the Gulf Stream.
Climate-change promoters also are perplexed by the observations of NASA’s eight weather satellites. In contrast to some 7,000 land-based stations, they take more than 300,000 temperature readings daily over the surface of the Earth. In 30 years of operation, the satellites have recorded a warming trend of just 0.14C - well within the range of normal variations. If the Argos buoys and satellites had confirmed the greenie computer models and Gore hype instead of natural temperature variations, it would have been big news. The silence speaks volumes.