March 03, 2008

All cranked up over global warming? Why? It's happened before and humans just like you survived it, so why not this time around? It's nothing new. The last recorded temperature uptick was known as the Medieval Warm Period, a time of unusually balmy weather, which lasted (depending on who's doing the figgerin') from around 800 to 1300 AD. The warm period was presumably preceded by a cold period, else how did anyone know it was a warm period? It was, in fact, followed by a cold period, known today as the Little Ice Age, which ran on Broadway and all over the Northern Hemisphere from (again, approximations) 1250 to 1850 AD.

People are obsessing about today's global warming because anti-libertarian political opportunists and cultural Marxists and enviro-religionists and government-paid researchers who stand to gain political and/or social power and prestige and tons of taxbucks are demanding that we obsess about it.

To counter the Al Goregoyle-lead gloomsayers, here are 10 reasons to love global warming.

1. Longer growing seasons. – more food for hungry people, more biofuels for hungry cars.

2. Burning less fossil fuel for warmth. Just what the Goregoyles want, right?

3. Won't need winter wardrobes. Save big bucks. If the weather turns chill just toss on another layer of summer duds. An "I Heart Global Warming" Tee shirt should do the trick.

4. Alaska will melt. This will create the biggest land rush since government goons stole the Cherokee Strip from the Oklahoma Indians and opened it up to White settlement. Just think, new farms and homes and cities, causing a population shift away from dense overcrowded cities in the lower 48. Those who stay will have less traffic to tussle with on their travels to and from work.

5. Panama will sink. Panama below the canal is mostly swampland now. Large freighters and supertankers too large for the locks will have a free shortcut across the immersed isthmus, making world trade cheaper and faster.

6. Panama will sink. Great news for the anti illegal immigration crowd. With the land bridge between the two continents gone it'll be tougher for South American border-busters to migrate north. And if the Rio Grande permanently flows at floodtide from melting glaciers...

7. Vikings will get Greenland back. Greenland must indeed have been a green land when Erik the Redheaded Stranger homesteaded there and named it in 982, since it was during that aforementioned Medieval Warm Period. Alas, the last known Norse record from Greenland indicates that the island was abandoned around 1500, smack in the middle of the Little Ice Age. That period's global warming brought them, and the expanding ice cap literally pushed them over the edge. Now their Danish descendents can dig up old deeds and return to their ancestral homes once today's Post-Modern Warm Period gets cranking.

8. England will get their wine industry back. Yep, Jolly Ol' England had vineyards just like France and Germany and Italy, until that nasty Little Ice Age came along and turned it all into frozen Snapple Grapeade. With global warming comes Vineyards and Fine English Table Wines and a whole new industry creating jobs for thousands. What some people call Global Warming, others will call Getting Back To Normal.

9. More months of bikini babes and beachboy biceps. Need more be said?

10. Stop the next Ice Age. Scientific American ran a March 2005 cover story by marine geologist Prof William Ruddiman of Virginia U entitled "Did Humans Stop an Ice Age?" How so? According to the Prof, up until about 8,000 years ago the Earth had been regularly alternating between cold periods and warm periods due to Earth's orbital wobble, but then the planet suddenly missed a period. It stayed warm. His explanation is "farming." People all across southern Eurasia whacked down forests so the sun could get to their crops. Others flooded wetlands and created rice paddies. So, clearing the forest generated carbon dioxide and irrigation generated methane.

This article, along with acknowledgement of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age, have been studiously ignored by the world's Goregoyles, apparently because they constitute "Incontinent Truths."

For every bad thing that happens when the Earth's average temperature rises, other good things happen. Warming and cooling have been going on for eons and humans have been successfully adapting to it. Some libertarians might suggest that Warming Worrywarts acquaint themselves with history rather than just the latest hysterical headline to confirm this.

It's not Global Warming, it's Ice Age Abatement.

An Ice Age Averted? An Interview with Prof William Ruddiman

[Editor's note: This was written a year ago, and now we are told the earth has cooled off rapidly in the last 12 months! Whiplash!!!! I live in Wyoming, and I sure could have used a few warmer winters.

Now we have to see what the boobies decide to blame the cooling trend on. How in the world can the legislatures and congress ever keep up with all these changes?]

(Originally published here)

Garry Reed's articles have appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, LP News and other print and online publications.

The latest from the River City's Reader:

All Threats All the Time
by Garry Reed

You're listening to WIMP radio, 9.11 on your dial, the All Threat All the Time station where our programming format aims to keep everyone in a perpetual state of fear. So stay in bed and pull the covers up over your heads.

Here are the most important Threat Levels for today:

Homeland Security Terrorist Alert Threat Level is High Anxiety Orange.

Air Quality Pollution & Airborne Allergen Particulate Hacking & Coughing Threat Warning is Mucus Green.

Morning Rush Hour Drive Time Bumper Bender & Rear Ender Threat Level is Body Rust Brown.

Downtown Restaurant Lunchtime Seating Capacity Threat Level is Salad Green.

Piddlyboro Elementary School Kindergarten Running with Scissors Threat Level is Clown-Costume Polka-Dot Blue.

And later this afternoon, the Happy Hour Hot Spot Stupid Pickup Line Threat Warning is Angry Non-Repeatable Rejection Prose Purple. (Read the rest here)

Copyright -- Garry Reed
The Loose Cannon Libertarian

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