John Tyndall - Global Warming/title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" link="#0000ff" vlink="#ff00ff" text="#000000"> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, Univers, sans-serif"><font size=3> <center> <table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0 align=center> <tr> <td rowspan=2 bgcolor="#0000ff" width=9 valign=top align=left> <a href="index.html#directory"> <img src="b1x1.gif" width=9 height=67 border=0></a> </td> <td> </td> <td align=right valign=top> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, Univers, sans-serif"> <font size=6><b><i> Global Warming </i></b></font> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <td> </td> <td align=right valign=bottom> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, Univers, sans-serif"> <font size=3><b><i> John Tyndall questions the impact of man-made pollution on climate </i></b></font></td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=3 bgcolor="#ff0000"> <img src="r1x1.gif" width=8 height=8></td> <td><img src="w1x1.gif" width=8 height=8></td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr> <td bgcolor="#ff0000" valign=top><img src="r1x1.gif" width=9 height=8></td> <td> </td> <td><font face="Arial, Helvetica, Univers, sans-serif"><font size=3> p>The world of science is by no means unanimous about the theory that man-made industrial effusions are affecting the climate. Is this theory being exploited for political purposes? <p>I have always been instinctively suspicious of the theory of "global warming". However, not being a scientist, I have felt inhibited from getting into a debate on the subject at least until now. The reasons for my suspicions have been twofold:- <p>In the first place, it has never made sense to me that the world's climates could be affected <i>fundamentally</i> by human actions. Certainly, the actions of man (and here we are in fact speaking only of a very small section of mankind as a whole, distinguished by high intelligence and imagination) can harness the power of nature for human purposes. Dry areas can be irrigated by the redirection of rivers, energy an be generated by the impact of water on man constructed dams. Then there are solar energy and the energy of wind power applications, albeit so far limited in their scope, of the same principles: man-made constructs to use the forces of nature as a human resource. People more expert than I could no doubt provided many more example of the same rule. <p>But these amount only to an <i>exploitation</i> of the powers of nature and on a peripheral scale, they do not constitute man's <i>control</i> of nature in the sense of preventing natural catastrophes, such as earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions or floods, or indeed of being able to regulate the world's weather. <p>Most certainly, fundamental climatic changes have occurred - as will he examined later in this article, but they have done so over far greater spans of time than has ever been acknowledged by the "global warming" lobby. Also, beyond any doubt, it is nature itself alone that has effected these changes, never human contrivance of any kind. <h3>PC article of faith</h3> <p>The second factor making for strong scepticism on my part as to "global warming" is the identity of its most enthusiastic believers. Largely, though by no means exclusively, they are to he found in the ranks of the politically correct. Largely though not exclusively, they are the same people who are to be found singing the virtues of internationalism, multi-racialism and liberalism. One can almost see the glow that comes into their cheeks as they speak of "global warming", not just as a theory of climatic change which has its advocates just as it has its opponents, but as a fact of life in the modern world that is beyond dispute except by cranks, reactionaries, non-thinkers and folk in general who show insufficient a sense of "global responsibility". The obsession with the latter concept leads to a heartfelt welcoming of the global-warming idea: here is just another imperative, one an almost hear them saying, for us all to think of ourselves as world-citizen with a common interest in dealing with a common problem, and thus a duty to act in the interests of our planet rather than out of narrow personal, commercial or even national considerations! It does not seem an accident that the quot;Green-peace" crowd have swallowed the "global warming" idea hook, line and sinker, while Prince Charles, ever on the lookout for trendy and "progressive" causes with which to align himself, has done likewise. <p>But a backlash is now growing - and not a moment too soon. Two recent articles have shed much welcome light on the matter, coming as they do from writers with some acquaintance with science - not thought to be a necessary qualification by so many of those who pontificate on the subject. <h3>"A great story"</h3> <p>Michael Hanlon, science editor of the <cite>Daily Express</cite>, made his contribution in the midst of the November flood season when writing in <cite>The Spectator</cite> on the 11th of that month, saying:- <blockquote> <p>‘Global warming is a great story. As a formula, it is hard to beat disaster, floods, middle-class greed, dollops of guilt, angst at our shiny cars and our meretricious prosperity, hair-rending guilt that we are raping the planet. Like the Romans, we believe the gods will punish us for our naughtiness with thunderbolts and storms, fire and ice; Home County pastures will be parched and sore; the hungry sheep will look up, and will not be fed. There will be, in short, a colossal weeping and gnashing of teeth. And it is all our fault.’ </blockquote> <p>But is it? Hanlon continued:- <blockquote> <p>‘Everyone in the media seems to want the storms to be caused by global warming and indeed they might well be; but it is just that unfortunately we have no evidence whatsoever that they are. Let's look at the evidence; I am not a meteorologist, but I know a few men who are, and no-one I have spoken to has claimed that there is any evidence that the great storms of 2,000 have anything to do with global warming. The meteorologists who have been on duty at the Met Office this past fortnight - Sean Clarke, Andy Yeatman and Colin Donnelly - have all given the same message; "No, this is well within the limits of natural variation. Weather like this simply happens from time to time - it's rare, but it happens..."’</blockquote> <p>Hanlon went on to list a few examples of freak weather at time far removed from the year 2000: 4.7 inches of rain in Louth, Lincolnshire, on the 29th May 1920, causing 22 people to drown; worse still, a storm in East Anglia on the night of 25-26 August 1912 bringing 8.1 inches of rain - with large parts of Norfolk remaining under water for eight months in the following winter. Then even worse than that 7.9 inches of rain in five hours in Cannington in Somerset on the 18th August I924. All far more severe than anything last November! <h3>The Little Ice Age</h3> <p>But this was only yesterday in real historical terms. Quoting from <cite>The Weather of Britain</cite> by the late Robin Stirling Hanlon continued:- <blockquote> <p>‘In the 16th and 17th centuries much of the Northern Hemisphere was in the grip of the Little Ice Age. The winter of l684 was so cold that the Thames froze to a depth of several feet and night-time temperatures in London probably dipped below 4°F. Much of the warming seen in the last century or so could be part of the rebound from this three-century chilly spell. Going back further still, the 9th and 10th centuries were so warm that forests flourished in Iceland. Britain was warm in Roman times too, maybe three to four degrees hotter than today. The weather can change markedly and without our intervention. <p>‘The global warming paradigm is simple: we burn fossil fuels, which liberate carbon dioxide, which in turn acts as a heat trap in the atmosphere. This has been going on since the industrial Revolution, so this might account for the one-degree rise in temperatures we have seen since 1900, right? Well, not necessarily. First, there is the natural rebound from the Little Ice Age. Burning coal and petrol also produces smoke and ash, and these substances block off sunlight, causing global cooling. Not everyone agrees that the world is getting warmer, anyway: satellite measurements are at odds with those from the ground. And then there is the sun. Many such as British scientist Nigel Calder believe that variations in the solar wind contribute far more to climate change than we do.’ </blockquote> <p>The global-warming theory, said Hanlon, is a relatively recent one - which prompts the suspicion that its origins are not scientific but that it has simply occurred to certain people to use it as a political weapon, along with others involved in the creation of "global problems", requiring (of course!) "global solutions". According to Hanlon:- <blockquote> <p>‘It is interesting that in the past there has been little attempt to ascribe strange weather to a long-term trend. The single most devastating weather event in Britain this century was the Great Flood of 1953, when a tidal surge combined with severe gales and inundated most of the English East Coast. Nowadays we would blame rising sea levels for the floods, and insist that were caused by, yes you've guessed it, global warming. But in 1953 the floods were seen as just one of those things. Politicians have a dishonourable record of using the environment as a means to justify thin end. Margaret Thatcher was a late convert to the green cause, when she saw that it could used to hammer the miners, and their nasty carbon dioxide-producing coal.’ </blockquote> <h3>"Greenhouse scientists"</h3> <p>Mention of Nigel Calder was apposite, for only two days later that writer had his own piece in the <cite>Daily Mail</cite>. Calder, another science writer, was also contemptuous of the global-warmers, referring to them as "green-house scientists" and "gloating environmentalists." Scientists on the whole, he said, were deeply divided on the matter of climatic changes and their cause, and some tended to speak irresponsibly. Of these, he said:- <blockquote> <p>‘Their vehemence, if not their science, has been wildly persuasive. They have managed to turn the warming of the 20th century into a scare story and a lucrative source of funds for some scientists and the environmentalist lobby.’ </blockquote> <p>But he, Calder, disagreed. What we really face, he said, is the risk of global cooling, not warming. Calder also reminds us of the distant and not-so-distant past:- <blockquote> <p>‘Let's take a brief look at some of our globe's climate history. Back in 1703, on the evening of November 26, the writer Daniel Defoe thought that his children had broken his barometer because the mercury had sunk lower than ever before. <p>‘The fierce storm that hit Southern England that night was, probably, the worst on record. It occurred during the coldest phase of the past 1,000 years, in the depths of what became known as the Little Ice Age, when the Thames frequently froze at London Bridge. <p>‘Then, nearly 300 years later, in the much milder climate of 1987, hurricane-force winds again felled the trees of Southern England. <p>‘So any linkage between extreme weather and climate change is plainly very loose. <p>‘In addition, the Little Ice Age reminds us that the climate went up and down like a yo-yo long before us humans began to use fossil fuels on a large scale. <p>‘Just after Defoe's great storm, and in the natural course of climate variability, came a bout of global warming bigger and faster than we are experiencing today. <p>‘The I730s were nearly as hot as the l990s. Since this warming occurred before the Industrial Revolution, one can he sure that it was nothing to do with man-made carbon dioxide. <p>‘This period ended abruptly, in the severe winter of 1740, when the Little Ice Ace reasserted itself and continued with ups and downs into the 19th Century.’ </blockquote> <p>Coming closer to our own times, Calder reminded us:- <blockquote> <p>‘In 1920s and l930s the there was another spell of continuous warming. So those older people who remember glorious weather in their youth are not deceiving themselves. But from the 1950s onwards the climate grew chilly once more. In Britain, the winter of 1962-63 was the worst since 1740. Snow covered huge areas from Boxing Day (26th December) until early March, and harbours froze.’ </blockquote> <p>And that brings me to my own experience, as a very non-scientific person applying a little memory and common sense to the question, I shall not forget the winter of 1962-63, being then in a situation in which the usual home comforts as a refuge from inclement weather were not available. That time was a real freeze-up, and I have always felt that the two-decade gap between then and the experience of "global-warming" doctrines in the I980s was much too short to give the latter any validity. <h3>Influence of the sun </h3> <p>Calder's theory is that climatic changes are much more likely due to changes in the sun, quoting the astronomer William Herschel in finding "that the price of wheat was higher when there was a scarcity of dark sunspots blemishing the sun's bright face." The sun-spots, Calder claims, herald warmer weather. I, myself, am in no position to comment on this theory, but at least it acknowledges that alterations in the climate are, as I have always suspected, due to natural causes far beyond human control - unless of course there are some zealots who would aver that these sunspots are themselves created by industrial emissions! <p>But the trouble with that theory is that the sunspots, according to Calder, are presently in recession suggesting that global <i>cooling</i> is on the way. <p>As I said earlier on in this article, l am not a scientist. From this it would follow that I have no dogmatic opinions on whether Messrs Hanlon and Calder are right or the "global-warming" brigade is right. I presume the idea of these two writers simply, as some would say "as contribution to debate." <p>But the feeling persists that what Hanlon and Calder have said - backed up as this is by many others in the scientific world - makes much more sense as an explanation of our weather than does "global warming". <p>And the feeling likewise persists that there are powerful lobbies in the world of politics, who have their own reasons for wanting us to believe differently. </font> </font></td> <td width=50 valign=bottom align=right> <a href="index.html#directory"> <img src="blu-dia7.gif" width=50 border=0></a> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> </td> <td> </td> <td colspan=2 align=right valign=bottom> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, Univers, sans-serif"> <font size=2><b><i> Spearhead Online </i></b></font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </font> </body>  </html>