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Another look at
global warming
By J.V. Mitchell
We continue to hear talk about "global warming". Twenty or thirty years ago,
some of the same people, who are now concerned with warming, were warning us
about impending "global cooling", as in ice age. But, I guess the times are
a-changing.
The UN is determined to proceed with the Kyoto protocols, which would require
the US and other developed nations to reduce the amount of carbon based fuels
used. They insist that the automobiles and factory smoke stacks in the USA are
causing an ever increasing rise in global temperature. This, according to the
"experts" will cause the glaciers to melt, which will cause
the oceans to rise and flood most of the current ocean front property, including
New York City and much of Florida.
They see the "chicken little" window of environmental opportunity to scare the
USA closing, now that Bill Clinton is gone. Fortunately, President Bush refuses
to agree to the protocols, so far.
The group of one world, political, "weather scientists" is getting
hysterical in its most dire warnings. "Hurry, shut down your power plants and
factories, before it is forever too late", seems to be the message that it is
sending. Last year, Dan Rather stood near the Mendenhal glacier and with his
best ten dollar solemn expression informed us that the glacier had retreated 9
feet in the last year. Was this caused by carbon dioxide from carbon based fuel
burning? That was his implication.
Let's forget the propaganda and look at the facts, for a change. Twenty thousand
years ago, the glaciers extended all the way to central Illinois. Anyone who has
driven to the Champaign-Urbana area has seen the pool-table flat land which the
glaciers left. However, when the first European explorers came to the Midwest,
there was no sign of the glacier. It was completely gone from what is now our
nation.
My question is this, from which factory smokestacks, from whose automobile
exhausts did the dreaded carbon dioxide come in the last twenty thousand years?
Actually, the earth is warming up; it has been for doing so for twenty thousand
years. Did "greenhouse gasses" cause the global warming? Who knows? It happened
before there were any radical environmentalists here to measure the CO2
concentration.
A bit closer to us, in time, is a look at all-time high and low temperatures for
our areas. Kentucky's all time high was 114 degrees, set on July 28, 1930, the
low was -37, set on January 19, 1994. For Illinois, the high was 114, set on
July 14, 1954. The low was set on February 3, 1996, at -35 degrees. These
figures don't look like "global warming" to me. I mean, 1954 was half a century
ago.
Might the glaciers come again? Probably. This is the story of our planet,
alternating periods of warming and cooling, without the help of mankind or his
exhaust pipes.
It seems to me that the real agenda behind the global warming campaign is to
shut down the most successful industrial nation in history.
But they had best hurry; another ice age is on the way.
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