…from a U.S. Senator? Yeh, James Inhoffe, who—appart from the now usual *sigh* grammatical and word usage gaffes so common among supposedly literate people—stuck it to climate alarmists* in a speech delivered from the Senate floor, Monday. All the climate alarmists in the Senate, of course, stuck their fingers in their ears and made “la-la-la-la” sounds when he said such things as
…I would like to summarize some of the recent developments in the controversy over whether or not humans have created a climate catastrophe. One of the key aspects that the United Nations, environmental groups and the media have promoted as the “smoking gun†of proof of catastrophic global warming is the so-called ‘hockey stick’ temperature graph by climate scientist Michael Mann and his colleagues.
This graph purported to show that temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere remained relatively stable over 900 years, then spiked upward in the 20th century presumably due to human activity. Mann, who also co-publishes a global warming propaganda blog reportedly set up with the help of an environmental group, had his “Hockey Stick†come under severe scrutiny.
The “hockey stick†was completely and thoroughly broken once and for all in 2006. Several years ago, two Canadian researchers tore apart the statistical foundation for the hockey stick. In 2006, both the National Academy of Sciences and an independent researcher further refuted the foundation of the “hockey stick.â€
The National Academy of Sciences report reaffirmed the existence of the Medieval Warm Period from about 900 AD to 1300 AD and the Little Ice Age from about 1500 to 1850. Both of these periods occurred long before the invention of the SUV or human industrial activity could have possibly impacted the Earth’s climate. In fact, scientists believe the Earth was warmer than today during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings grew crops in Greenland.
All of that is common knowledge for folks who’ve been paying attention to history, let alone recent (deeply-buried) news articles. That a U.S. Senator has twigged to the Medieval Warm Period and the Maunder Minimum that put paid to it IS news, though. *heh* News that won’t get very far with the Mass Media Podpeople.
Oh, well. The fact that when Greenland was settled, about a millennium ago, it was farmable and was for some time a net exporter of goods (primarily grain and dairy products!) is little known, largely because of an apparent conspiracy (of dunces) to turn Americans into historically ignorant sheeple, prey for alarmist wolves. Oh! But that terrible “global warming” led to mass epidemics, didn’t it? Well, yeh, indirectly. Longer growing seasons led to a population explosion in Europe (and massive increases in wealth, BTW), which, in the existing society meant more rats to spread the plague brought back from trade with China.
Still and all, the warm climate of the Medieval Warm period allowed Europe to essentially breed itself out of trouble, resulting in conditions favorable to the Rennaisance…
Oops. The refining and expansion of Western Civilization. A definitely “bad thing” to climate alarmists in general. Led to the development of *shudder* science and advanced technologies. Things to be eschewed in favor of voodooism (like Mann’s “hockey stick”) and shrill shouting in Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind cant.
Oh, yeh: h.t. Chaos Manor Musings