The entire 10,000-year history of civilization has happened in an unusually warm interlude in the Earth’s recent history. Over the past million years, it has been as warm as this or warmer for less than 10% of the time, during 11 brief episodes known as interglacial periods.
…..Our own interglacial period has followed previous ones in having an abrupt beginning and a sharp peak, followed by slow cooling. The question is whether recent warming is a temporary blip before the expected drift into glacial conditions, or whether humankind’s impact on the atmosphere has now reversed the cooling trend.
via Matt Ridley on Ice Ages and Man-Made Warming | Mind & Matter – WSJ.com.
When considering climate and the number of years Earth has existed, looking at windows of 10,000 or even 1 million years seems like manipulation of statistical patterns. I imagine it was substantially warmer during the age of dinosaurs and I doubt we had polar bears at that time.
Matt Ridley has made a platform for himself as being an optimist. His book called ‘The Rational Optimist’ is nearly as optimistic as this article. And there is a time and a place for optimism but, given that Matt was a director at Northern Rock where he optimistically failed to notice what was happening, I think he could do with a little less of it. Optimism is no substitute for a firm grasp of reality.
Humans contribute a mere 3% of the total carbon released into the atmosphere (Volcanoes account for the vast majority) so I don’t expect the earth’s natural cycle of heating and cooling to be influenced much by human impact let alone reverse the cooling trend. No carbon tax proponents ever quote what temperature reduction their measures will achieve, because they are so insignificant they are not even measurable!
Thanks Bruce. I must say that knowing that, in your expert opinion, a substantial majority of Climate Scientists are completely wrong is a great comfort.