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The weather is the weather and the weather is pure chaos. It just happens and
it does so in ways that still largely remain a mystery to meteorologists and
climatologists. This, however, does not stop environmentalists from blaming
these latest weather events on "global warming", the greatest lie of the 20th
century.
Some factors, however, are known. Sallie Baliunas, an astrophysicist with the
George C. Marshall Institute and deputy director of the Mount Wilson
Observatory, points out that "In 1610 Galileo began the telescopic
observations of sunspots that make up our modern view of the sun. Sunspots
are cooler, darker areas of strong magnetic fields. The number of sunspots
peaks and the direction of the field changes every eleven years or so, making
a 22-year magnetic cycle. In the 1980s NASA satellites collected data that
showed the sun was brightest during peak sunspot periods."
"The sun's signature," noted Baliunas, "seems also present in the climate
record over many millennia. Every few centuries the sun's magnetism weakens
to low levels for several decades. An example is the period from about 1640
to 1710, when sunspots were rare. That period coincided with the coldest
century of the millennium."
The bottom line regarding the weather in recent years is that weather
measurements "show no increasing global warming trend." The other conclusion
one can draw from data reaching back five centuries is that it is-and always
has been-the Sun that determines the overall temperature of the Earth.
Environmental groups have thrived on dire weather predictions. In the 1970's
they were predicting a coming Ice Age. A decade later they were claiming that
global warming was real. Neither is on the near horizon for the Earth. You
need to keep repeating to yourself, "They're lying. They're lying. They're
lying."
You need only go back two years to recall that hot weather was not an issue
on the East Coast. The August 1, 2000 edition of The Washington Post reported
that "The average temperature was more than 5 degrees below normal in what
the National Weather Service said was one of the Washington area's coolest
Julys on record. Last year, 2001, was only slightly warmer than "average"
according to global climate data gathered by meteorological satellites. It
added up to a mere 0.11 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20-year (1979-1998)
average.
Weather extremes have existed throughout history. In that regard, they can be
considered "normal" precisely because they have always occurred in some part
of the world. This year it's Europe's and Asia's turn to experience them. The
United States and Mexico are coping with their own weather-related events and
trends. One need hardly go back beyond the 1990s to find ample examples of
floods comparable to what is occurring elsewhere in the world. Here in the
US, the Mississippi River dramatically flooded vast areas in 1993. In 1994,
the San Jacinto River in Texas burst its banks.
As Lesley Newson, the author of "Devastation: The World's Worst Natural
Disasters", points out, "Dramatic climatic change is a natural feature of our
planet. Many of the most damaging climatic shifts of recent times have been
linked to fluctuations in the movement of winds and ocean currents." The word
to focus on is "natural." This is Nature at work, not the result of human
activity.
As but one example, there have been major floods in Germany in 1232, 1515,
1534, 1785, 1813, 1816, 1853, and 1855. The latest floods may be
once-in-a-hundred-year-type occurrences, but they have most certainly
occurred in the past. And well before any so-called "global warming."
Changes in the weather, particularly in Europe, have been attributed to the
North Atlantic Oscillation, a weather pattern in which high pressure and low
pressure centers over northern and southern Europe tend to alternate. This
year's floods are not that unusual. Last year, parts of Hungary, Poland and
even Siberia experienced severe flooding.
Look at it this way, if a new Ice Age arrives, it will be a natural event and
there will not be a thing anyone can do about it. The last one ended 12,000
years ago after having begun 114,000 years earlier. The waters it released
killed countless species, but its end coincided with the time Homo Sapiens
began their long trek toward the creation of human civilization throughout
the world.
Keep this in mind the next time you read some apocalyptic prediction coming
out of the latest United Nations conference on "Sustainable Development" or
published by one of the countless environmental organizations, they are lying
in order to further their march toward the acquisition of totalitarian power.
Alan Caruba is the author of "The United Nations Vs. The United States", for sale from the Internet site of The National Anxiety
Center, a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2002
Published by permission.
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