Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he’s got an answer: “536.” Surprisingly, he believes it wasn’t 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe or 1918, when the Spanish flu killed in excess of 50 million people.
“536CE was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.
A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. “For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year,” wrote Byzantine historian Procopius.
The cause of the fog was a giant volcanic eruption the previous year.
Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell by up to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the previous 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed around the world; people starved.
And then, eventually, our planet miraculously warmed up again – all by itself !
And guess what happened next……..that’s right, the planet cooled down again as we entered the ‘Little Ice Age’ (see chart above).
What this clearly demonstrates is that the warming and cooling of our planet is perfectly normal cyclical climate behaviour.
It also shows that practically all changes in temperature are caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, solar activity etc.
Before climate science became politicized, historians called warm periods “climate optima” because Earth’s ecosystems and humanity benefitted from the warmth.
Conversely, during cold periods human condition declined.
During most of the warm periods, there were either no, or very few, humans on the planet and there was certainly no industrial activity.
The question, therefore, is why are so many people – including world leaders, government agencies and scientists – taking us down the path of climate alarmism?
There are three main reasons.
Firstly, there is sheer ignorance; most climate alarmists have little or no knowledge of climate science.
If you need evidence of that, consider the Teals and their emotion-driven hysteria regarding global warming.
Of course, in their case it was all for the purpose of being elected. They used fear of climate Armageddon to scare their communities into voting for them. And they were funded by vested commercial interests.
Then there’s Greta Thunberg and her imbecilic behaviour.
Secondly, many scientists know the truth but are afraid to speak up for fear of being called ‘climate deniers’ and/or having their funding stopped or losing their jobs.
Once an issue is perceived to be ‘settled science’ it’s very hard to speak up against it.
Having said that, more and more scientists are at last starting to speak out on this issue and making themselves heard. And many more will doubtless follow their lead.
The third and probably most important factor is the power of money and greed.
Many fortunes are being made by companies and individuals jumping onto the renewables bandwagon with futile attempts to totally replace fossil fuels with hugely expensive and unreliable alternative energy sources such as solar, wind and hydrogen.
Ironically, the biggest winner so far is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who are making huge profits from the sale of solar panels and inverters, wind turbines and associated equipment, EVs and EV batteries, and the rare minerals required to make the renewables dream (or should that be ‘nightmare’) possible.
We have a federal government that is obsessed with climate change virtue-signalling.
PM Tony Albanese and Energy Minister Chris ‘Blackouts’ Bowen are severely damaging our economy as a result of their Net Zero obsession.
They are also distracted away from much more important issues such as ever-increasing cost-of-living expenses and building up our defence capabilities in readiness for a highly likely regional conflict within the next few years.
And this is all despite the fact that Australia only produces just over 1% of global CO2 emissions. So, even if we accept that human-induced CO2 makes a very minor impact on global warming (and that’s a big ‘if’), nothing we do will achieve anything worthwhile.
Our government has also shown scant regard for the many people adversely affected by its renewables crusade.
Farming and coastal communities in particular are being traumatised by massive wind turbines and transmission lines being hastily installed on their land and in coastal waters where people earn their living and enjoy their vacations.
And we are all being adversely affected by increased electricity, fuel, and other cost pressures in our day-to-day lives.
And it looks like it will only get worse with this government in charge.
This climate insanity needs to be stopped and needs to be stopped NOW!
Some of the above material was supplied by the CO2 Coalition (co2coalition.org) via their soon-to-be-published book, A Very Convenient Warming – How Modest Warming and More CO2 are Benefiting Humanity and also via Ann Gibbons who is a contributing correspondent for Science Journal and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
