By Isaac MacMillen
A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals that “Global Warming” has dropped on America’s priority list—down to the bottom. “Protecting the Environment” also dropped; it is down 15 percent from last year, and is at its lowest levels since 2003. It appears that the scare-tactics of the envirolobby have met with dismal failure.
As a new administration enters Washington, there will be pressure from global warming advocates to move quickly to “combat” this “alarming issue.” Yet, as ALG News has reported, both the dearth of scientific evidence and lackluster public opinion polls may end up killing the issue completely—at least until Al Gore and Co. can cook up another reason to fear the very light of day. But they’d better hurry, or else the growing consensus on global cooling will render them a historical footnote.
The latest advance came from Dr. Gary Sides, a cattle nutrition expert, who gave a presentation to a group of ranchers attending the 5th Annual Cattlemen’s Workshop in Oregon. Dr. Sides spoke about the impacts that global warming alarmism could have—and the actual threat of global cooling. He began by speaking about the role of sunspots in climate change, and the very high level of correlation between the two. Pointing to the fact that lack of sunspots usually corresponds to mini ice ages, he noted that there was a recent dearth of sunspots—and the cooling may already be felt, with temperatures worldwide 10-20 degrees lower than normal.
He also spoke about the continued need for fossil fuels, pointing out that, without them, the population of the world could suffer the loss of up to 33 percent (that’s 2.2 billion for those counting). He also pointed to the increases in cattle productivity made possible through advanced farming techniques and equipment—many powered by coal or gas—he raised the specter of losing them and going back to 1950s-style farming.
Such a move would require either a 2/3 drop in food consumption, or an increase of 200 million acres—roughly double the size of California. And that’s just to keep consumption at current levels. Never mind the significant increase in world population expected by mid-century.
Simply put, the results of such global warming-oriented policies will spell disaster. As Dr. Sides averred, many essential industries run on gas and coal. To remove them would cause severe unintended consequences for millions—if not billions—of people, worldwide.
But he did not argue for complete inaction; on the contrary, farmers and ranchers must prepare for coming climate change—in the form of cooling. Crops and cattle must be cared for with the chilling effects of cooling in mind.
Dr. Sides criticism of the global warming movement comes at the right time. As Americans realize the extremely high cost that will be extracted from them in the name of “survival,” they will continue to reject anthropogenic global warming and embrace true, sun-based climate change—which has been observed over a 100 year period, as the rise or fall of sea surface temperature correlated almost exactly with the number of sunspots in a particular year.
With a record-cold year hurting the global warming apologists’ public perception, the last thing they need is for yet more educated Americans to stand up and give the cold, hard facts. Kudos to Dr. Sides for doing just that, and helping Americans understand the true economic cost of “global warming”— and creating a decided chill over the global warmists’ over-heated rhetoric.
Isaac MacMillen is a contributing editor of ALG News Bureau.
