Three layers of rock held together with two layers of oil and packed with a heavy asphalt roller pave the road to my cabin on the other side of the lake.
These mushrooms plowed through it all so they could feel the sun. Each year these mushrooms remind me of the sheer vanity of those who believe that their mere presence on this planet has altered God’s work.
I thought about this when President Barack Obama visited Florida to tackle climate change. He said in the State of the Union speech it is the single biggest threat to future generations.
Thank God the world is at peace so the president can focus on the weather.
"Here in the Everglades you can see the effect of a changing planet," Obama said as he underscored the risk from rising sea levels.
(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Perhaps he doesn’t know that sea levels have risen by an average of 4 feet per century for 11,000 years. Last century sea levels only rose about 6 inches leading one to wonder about the dangers of sea levels.
Secretary of State John Kerry is on top of the greatest threat in the world also. Having handled Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he is going to the Arctic to prevent its melting. His senate committee was informed in 2009 that the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013. The ice level is actually higher today and, as luck would have it, Kerry has now been given until 2030 to prevent it from thawing completely.
[sharequote align="center"]Yes the climate is changing and has been for 4.5 billion years.[/sharequote]
Yes the climate is changing and has been for 4.5 billion years. Change is the only constant when it comes to climate.
We are fortunate to be in a warming period. They last approximately 10,000 years are sandwiched between glaciations in which the globe is covered in ice for about 100,000 years. Our current warming interlude is a bit elderly at 11,400 years.
The politically correct position is, of course, that human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, is causing a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that dangerously traps heat.
The politically correct solution is for rich nations to compensate poor nations for bearing the brunt of global warming. What those nations will do with our money to reduce atmospheric CO2 is anyone’s guess. Swiss banks come to mind.
CO2 is a “trace” gas that comprises four one-hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere. Rounding that off to tenths of one percent renders the amount of CO2 nil.
Princeton physicist Dr. Will Happer said, “Current CO2 levels are far below optimum for most plants, and far below norms of geological history when CO2 concentrations averaged several times higher than present values.”
Five hundred and forty two million years ago, during the Cambrian period, the planet was luxuriating in CO2. It was lush with greenery, awash in oxygen and pregnant with life.
Smoke rises from the Colstrip Steam Electric Station in Colstrip, Mont., Monday, July 1, 2013. (Photo: AP/Matthew Brown)
That period came to be known as the Cambrian Explosion because in a very short period of time all of the complex multicellular life forms that have ever existed were deposited in the fossil evidence.
The CO2 level during the most prolific time for life in the history of the planet was 20 times what it is today.
The lives of the poor in developing nations are brutal and short. Our patronizing demand that they produce less CO2 is an insult. A coal fired electricity plant would not only give them the tools to provide for themselves, but also some CO2 to help them grow a plant to eat.
Since the beginning of time the improvement in the human condition has coincided with the availability of energy for working and living. The economic system that has delivered that energy is capitalism.
Obama and Kerry are comfortable joining an environmental movement considers capitalism to be the biggest threat to humanity.
Forty years ago the consensus was that we needed government policies to prevent dangerous cooling. Now government must stop dangerous warming. For 18.5 of the last 40 years there has been no change in temperature at all.
While Obama and Kerry are distracted by carbon emissions serious scientists are watching the quieting sun. A growing number believe that an ice age is a bigger risk than warmer summers.
Al Gore has been wrong on his predictions for 25 years. The 20-foot rise in the oceans failed to appear. The polar bear population is increasing. The Antarctic ice pack is at record high levels.
Gore now says that 2015 is the tipping point for the environment. He’s may be right on the timing, but dead wrong on which way it is tipping.
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