Current Events – When Will the Next Ice Age Start? – Presentation
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Third Saturday Seminar 2014-2015
Return of the Elders, Unleash your Wisdom
Session 05
Climate Change – Threat or Menace?
Economics, Society and Environment
Curt Gibby
Saturday, 21 March 2015
9:30AM til 12:00 NOON
Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000
What’s in a name? Climate Change? Global Warming? Anthropogenic Global Warming? To many they all mean the same thing, the planet is getting warmer because of we humans and things are going to get very bad.
I have never doubted that climate goes through changes, or that human activity won’t have some effect From recorded history we know that from outlier events, or so we think, such as the little Ice age from 1300 to 1800 we know that we are in an interglacial, meaning a time between ice ages, usually 20,000 years . There have been warm periods as well.
But I am personally skeptical that, although humankind has certainly over indulged in what the planet has to offer, that we really don’t know what we don’t know. For some reason it has become fashionable to believe that our debauched lifestyle and the level of CO2 alone will cause our planet to be uninhabitable.
To think we can actually change the direction of a planetary climate cycle that has repeated itself 4 times in the last half million years is a bit of a reach. To formulate major political and economic policies
The flowing anonymous comment was downloaded from a link I found in Deccmber 2014 (which no longer exists) sums up what I believe to be the most accurate analysis of the climate change phenomenon
“The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.”
Here are a few graphs to start out with illustrating the climatological history of the planet followed by some thoughts attributed to Jared Diamond from an excerpt from a Wikipedia article on his book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
It is my opinion that Diamond’s environmental issues plus economic and social issues are far more urgent and potentially beneficial to mankind and the ability of our descendants to survive whatever future climate changes might threaten them than any vast ill-conceived plan of anthropogenic planetary engineering that will waste trillions and like hurt only the innocents and those it would be intended to help.
Who knows what the Universe has in store for humanity and our fellow living things. It bears remembering that those of us who are alive today are so only because our ancestors in the evolutionary past had the ability to adjust. Those that didn’t are remembered only in the fossil record, if at all. Our ancestors lived through previous ice ages as we or our children should live through future ones (or whatever.)
Note the change is time scales. The upper graph covers the past 500 million years.
Below, I have created a “close up” of the most recent periods. Note the four peaks that occurred before 20 thousand years ago. The time from the latest peak til today is about 110-120 thousand years ago. Note the quick rise in temperature at the end of the interglacial and the “quick drop” in temperature that inaugurates the next ice age.
We know from the fossil record that sea levels have been much higher than present over the eons, but at the star of the last five glacial periods the data suggests that sea level had actually dropped about 120 meters do to the water that was be held in the Northern Glacier. 10,000 years ago
Sea level change since the end of the last glacial episode. Changes displayed in metres.
Ideas from Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Diamond identifies five factors that contribute to collapse: climate change, hostile neighbors, collapse of essential trading partners, environmental problems, and failure to adapt to environmental issues.
He also lists 12 environmental problems facing humankind today. The first eight have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:
- Deforestation and habitat destruction
- Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
- Water management problems
- Overhunting
- Overfishing
- Effects of introduced species on native species
- Overpopulation
- Increased per-capita impact of people
Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies:
- Anthropogenic climate change
- Buildup of toxins in the environment
- Energy shortages
- Full human use of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity
Further Reading:
Just a few years we were more concerned about the approaching next Ice Age not warming. Perhaps we are just impatient.
“Past Climates on Earth” from GlobalChange.umich.edu
“Global Warming or The ‘New Ice Age’? Fear of the ‘Big Freeze’ ” from www.globalresearch.ca
Thanks Sarah Lundberg
Global Sea Ice Reference Page: Arctic and Antarctic current graphs and imagery
As usual we will start out with Current Events (Distractions)
The outcome of the election in Israel. Who will form a government?
Iran is sending army officers to train and lead Shia Militias in Iraq. Will they ever leave?
Hillary in the spotlight. Will she or won’t she?
Do our leaders and law makers in Washington know we watching them, far worse, the World is watching. I wonder what they must think
Third Saturday Seminars
4 Sessions
To refer to an ancient Chinese saying, “our world is in interesting times” and individual citizens are assaulted with a blinding array of propaganda from every conceivable source. The Third Saturday Seminar is about demystification of what is going on around us. Time will also be spent on current events. Meets 3/21, 4/25, and 5/16 on Montgomery Campus in B102.
16041 S 2/21-5/16 9:30 a.m.-Noon B102 Gibby
LSC-Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive, Conroe, TX 77384
For more information, call 936.273.7446
ALL- Montgomery Links:
Academy for Lifelong Learning: LSC-Montgomery
http://www.lonestar.edu/all-montgomery.htm
Spring Schedule:
http://www.lonestar.edu/departments/ce/ALL_scheduleSpring2015.pdf
Registration
How do I register for a class? You can fill out a registration form and submit it to us:
- In person: LSC-Montgomery (3200 College Park Dr., Conroe, TX 77384), Continuing Education/ALL Office Building E (Room 205)
- Phone: 936.273.7446
- Fax: 936.273.7262
Reminder for ALL members:
Please let us know if you change your address, phone number, or email. Call 936.273.7446 or email: MCALL@LoneStar.edu.
“Some part of our being knows this (the universe) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” Carl Sagan
See you Saturday, 15 November 2014 at 9:30am, Room B-102
Curt Gibby
Director