Humans can primarily thank two things for their current successful presence on Earth and the advanced civilization they live in in wealthy countries. One is the arrival of the current interglacial period (technically called the Holocene) a little more than about 10,000 years ago and the discovery and use of fossil fuels. The good and more stable weather and much higher CO2 levels relative to the previous Ice Age made possible by the Holocene appears to be what enabled the development of human civilization by enabling the cultivation of crops rather than hunting and gathering. Both rainfall and atmospheric CO2 levels are much higher during interglacial periods. Atmospheric CO2 levels depend primarily on global temperatures (not human emissions of CO2 as the climate alarmist environmentalists claim). And higher temperatures also increase evaporation of water into the atmosphere and thus increased rainfall. Finally, the discovery and use of fossil fuels enabled humans to escape the backbreaking manual work that characterized earlier human civilization by allowing the development of modern economies with all the conveniences that energy use makes possible in high income countries.
The human species emerged at a very recent period of Earth’s history. Ice ages are a comparatively recent development geologically speaking, and they have been becoming slowly but steadily more severe. As a result the Earth is not as warm as it used to be and temperatures are steadily but slowly declining from one ice age to the next. And atmospheric CO2 levels are also declining compared to earlier ice ages since atmospheric CO2 levels depend primarily on global temperatures, which have been gradually falling.
CO2 levels during the last Ice Age were so low that many plants were in danger of dying for lack of one of their basic nutrients, CO2. The great longer-term threat to humans is cold, not the global warming that climate alarmists are so concerned about. Yet the climate alarmists claim just the opposite, so their analyses and prescriptions are almost exactly backwards. One hypothesis why CO2 has no significant effect on temperatures is that much of the Earth, particularly in the tropical oceanic areas which receive much of the energy from the sun are regulated by emerging climate phenomena, not CO2, and these are what primarily determine temperatures in these areas. If so, reducing CO2 emissions as the climate alarmists insist must be done would have no discernible effect on temperatures, which appears to be the case.
The main effect of these climate alarmist “environmental” efforts, if successfully carried out, will be to greatly increase energy costs and reduce the availability and reliability of fossil fuel energy so crucial to the development of modern civilization. These misguided efforts may also help to seriously starve plants during the next ice age. Climate alarmist “environmentalists” are indeed enemies of human civilization and plants, not the saviors of nature they so often claim to be.
Feel like some log jams are beginning to move and to give the president momentum.
Tax cuts help economy and give people more income.
Instituting select tariffs raise money for the government to offset lowered taxes. They also help national security within a dangerous world. Favoring manufacturing in America helps Trump recruit blue collar voters to his side. 80 percent of Americans favor support to us manufacturing.
Some movement on North Korea shows Trump is more serious minded than predecessors.
He is open to more regulations about guns, because not afraid of the NRA.
The Hillary-Obama skullduggery of FISAgate is coming more into view. Comey may need a good lawyer.
It could someday occur to chuck and Nancy, maybe we should do a DACA deal, because we don’t want to seem wackier than North Korea!
These may all be preconditions that will in due course favor knocking off the scientifically preposterous and illegally established Endangerment finding.
Doc Carlin’s visage might someday come to grace a postage stamp! American hero series.
The democrats may be headed toward problems in the November 2018 election.
Trump cut taxes. He is instituting tariffs and is happy to win trade wars. His popularity is up and will head higher.
Meanwhile the democrats have no useful public policy ideas to offer about any topic. Hollywood celebrities are in disgrace. They want open borders and freebie health care. Jerry brown said the people need to be brainwashed about climate. Hello? The people need to be brainwashed? Maybe you you need to retire, Moonbeam.
One of Obama’s highest priorities was climate. But even when the dems controlled Capitol Hill, they chose not to support this cause and left it to Obama to pursue by dictate.
Breitbarts web site lately gets more traffic than the Washington post. There is a renaissance of conservative writers on the Web spewing out sense. People read breitbart because the realize they have been fed fake news from the mainstream.
The fake news media are en route to a growing loss of credibility. Who to believe? A casino owner who touts pro wrestling and beauty contests? Or untold thousands of university experts who Claim the earth is warming? The winners are Trump and Carlin.
Interglacial temperatures and temperature-dependent CO2-levels as initial conditions for the rise of human civilisation — a fascinating lesson from history. I have looked at an aspect of the historical perspective that you so instructively present above: https://quaesivi.blogspot.de/2018/02/promethean-growth-forgotten-deliverance.html
Mad Jim Hansen, zinc miner Al Gore, Larry David, Google, Governor Moonbeam, and all the twittering buffoons of the People’s Republic of California, how their knees must buckle whenever EPA whistleblower Doctor Carlin unleashes another straight-shooting tutorial about the Earth, it’s climate history, and climate future.
The land now occupied by Toronto and Chicago used to be parked under glaciers 100 feet high. Their melting retreat carved out and filled the Great Lakes. An immense climate change happened, naturally. Yet someday the cold will return.
Applying combustion engines to farm equipment enabled a massive labor shift from farms to cities, contributing to doubling average life expectancy.
The low levels of CO2 in the atmosphere enable photosynthesis. Plants use carbon atoms. When we eat fruit and vegetables, we too are nourished with carbon. We emit CO2 with every breath, part of a wonderful recycling of this precious molecule within earths Biosphere.
Environmental science need not be incompatible with truth. Thanks for another illustrative essay, Doctor Carlin!
Your use of the term “ice age” is within current vernacular, but is technically wrong. Your context indicates you really mean “glacial epoch.” I am a geologist and explain the difference here:
https://wryheat.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/ice-ages-and-glacial-epochs/