"Bad Luck" or Global Warming?

The Toronto Star ran this headline this morning on a feature about the top weather stories of the year.

Of course the storms hitting BC this year are caused by global warming, just as hurricane Katrina last year was global warming, the georgeous warm winter here in Ontario is global warming, and the breakup of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston is also probably "global warming". To determined eco-activists, "global warming" must be shoved in your face daily in order to stampede society into the solutions they favour based on emotion. The "reason" angle wasn't working too well. Panic is a better motivator.

I draw your attention to a map and a chart from Wikipedia ("Ice Age"). As recently as 10,000 years ago, not that long ago in geological and evolutionary terms, southern Ontario was under hundreds of metres of ice, and the oceans were 130 metres lower than they are today. The chart shows this pattern has been repeated for the past 400,000 years.

Global warming is certainly a fact, but I think it's time we realize this is a cycle that has been, and will be repeated in some form or another for millennia. Rather than wringing our hands and trying to "stop" the inevitable (many argue at best it can only be postponed, not stopped), perhaps our leaders should develop a strategy to deal with the consequences (coastal flooding, changing environments), and even the opportunities, rather than throwing trillions of our heard-earned dollars at rhetoric and ideology. (ie. If we can't convince you to share your wealth, and reduce inequality with the 3rd world via foreign aid handouts, then we'll stampede you into it with our latest equalization scheme ... Kyoto "carbon credits").

The warm winter in Europe was recently reported as being the warmest in 1,200 years, when Charlemagne was king. But Charlemagne didn't drive SUVs, and neither did the mastadons.

Global warming is real. History tells us that. So let's learn to deal with it. We humans adapt. After all, anything that gives us Atlanta's climate and sinks New York and Los Angeles into the ocean can't be all bad. (Calm down ... that was a joke).

The real immediate crisis is the current exponential growth in humanity that cannot continue, and nobody is even talking about it. Quite apart from the inability of our planet to support such exploding population growth on an ongoing basis, even if we succeed in halving our greenhouse gas output per capita within the next century, if our world population doubles in the same period, nothing will have changed.

Better to spend those trillions intelligently on educating the world's have-nots to a better life than susbsistence living in doomed high-risk coastal flood zones than simply pissing it away in head-in-the-sand handouts to both incapable and irresponsible regimes who will simply giggle with glee at the freebies (carbon credits) being flung at them by idiot ivory tower idealists in the developed world and promoted in our liberal media.

In the meantime, developing cleaner and more energy-efficient power sources, more energy-efficient appliances and technology, encouraging responsible energy use (not ridiculous pleas to turn up the air conditioning to uncomfortable highs, and turn down the furnace to uncomfortable lows ... why bother having the creature comforts if we can't use them?!), in the developed world is the way to go.

As a practical human, I want to see workable solutions with measurable outcomes to real-world factual challenges ... not opportunistic tax-grabs and equalization schemes from social engineers, Hollywood "experts" and eco-nazis. I am very willing to responsibly fine-tune our hard-earned lifestyle within Canada to adapt to inevitable change, but I will not give it up or throw it away for the pseudo-science, self-promotion of an ("I invented the internet") Al Gore, the eco-browbeating of the Salt Spring Island left-coast lobby (ie. David Suzuki and friends), the left-wing activism of the CBC, or the shamelss political opportunism of a (do as I say, not as I did)Stephane Dion.

But level out the population curve within a generation, and you will have actually accomplished something of value towards saving the planet. Current policies that, incredibly, encourage population growth is TRUE eco-irresponsibility, and likely suicide for our species within a relatively short time frame.

In my opinion, this is a much simpler strategy (free condoms to everyone worldwide regardless of income, massive public education and propoganda, and an end to all public policies that encourage and subsidize procreation ... and the economic reality of raising too many kids all on your own should do the rest). Surely flattening the population curve has a much higher chance of being achieved than trying to change the planet's climate cycle within 50 years!

Improving technology and encouraging conservation in developed societies is a no-brainer, but stupidly trading away our hard-earned prosperity and global economic advantage to our competitors, in a vain scheme to try to reverse 400,000 years of geologic and environmental history makes no sense to me. The giddy recipients of our foolishness will laugh all the way to the bank while the planet continues on the road to human population oblivion for reasons quite apart from "global warming". If you think we have "problems" at 6.6 billion (accumulated over all of recorded history), imagine this same planet with 13 billion in just two more generations (100 years). Good luck.

As I keep repeating, when you insist on making the wrong diagnosis, or purposely ignoring or avoiding the correct one for political reasons, there should be no mystery as to why your treatment isn't working.