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Global Warming a.k.a. Climate Change

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I am not contesting the fact that global warming a.k.a. climate change may have occurred over the last several decades. I am not an expert on the facts surrounding the earth’s changeable weather patterns. What I question, however, is the accusation that man’s burgeoning industries have been the cause.

Having said this, however, I have to admit to having read many scientific dissertations that expert climatologists have written on this subject. And to report that I agree with their conclusions.

I am well aware of the fact that during Europe’s medieval period (950 A.D. to 1350 A.D.), for example, within a period of some 400 years, the earth suffered a warming episode that produced infinitely hotter temperatures than those we are experiencing today.  Yet during the medieval period man had not yet discovered fossil fuels and he had not yet invented the internal combustion engine. These two causes, therefore, cannot be blamed for the medieval global warming episode as they are being blamed for the current one.

So, if it wasn’t the burning of fossil fuels, what did cause the climate to change during the medieval period?

It is reported that in medieval times human life prospered. Olives were grown in the British Isles as far north as the English/Scottish border; and grape vineyards thrived in the midlands of England. This was the period in European history when society funded the construction of the world’s greatest Christian cathedrals.

The coin flipped in the 14th Century when a mini-ice age hit Europe. For the duration of that century, every winter, the Thames River in England froze over and the British people indulged in annual festivals on the frozen ice. Nobody has hazarded a guess as to what caused that mini-ice-age the effects of which dragged on for the next two hundred years. It was certainly not caused by the burning of fossil fuels or the use of internal combustion engines in industry.

It is my contention that both events, the medieval global warming episode and the mini-ice age, are the opposite extremes of a single, fluctuating, environmental catastrophe derived from the same phenomenon: an unfortunate change in the positioning and repositioning of the sun relative to its influence on the earth’s climate. If this be the case, then the current global warming episode is nothing more and nothing less than a repeat of the same environmental phenomenon that ran its course over the earth a thousand years ago.

And unless, or until, the scientists of the UN’s IPCC (The International Panel on Climate Change) can come up with a better explanation for the medieval global warming episode, I am forced to state my belief that global warming today has nothing whatsoever to do with man-made circumstances and events.   Until now the IPCC has been silent on this matter!

Ron Thomson CEO-TGA                 

Ron Thomson

I am NOT a ‘trophy hunter’ - and never have been. I am not involved in the trophy hunting safari business. I am also not a game rancher. But I have ‘administratively controlled’ professional hunters and safari outfitters in my capacity as a government game warden. I am an 80 year old ex-game warden with 60 years of continuous experience in hands-on wildlife management, and national park management, in Africa (1959 to 2019). In breakdown, I have 24 years experience in the management of national parks in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe - and in the management of the wild animal populations that lived inside those national parks; one year as the Chief Nature Conservation of the Ciskei in South Africa; three years as Director of the Bophuthatswana National Parks Board in South Africa; and I worked for three years as a professional hunter in the South African Great Karoo (taking foreign hunters on quests for plains game trophies). I discovered, however, that professional hunting was not my forte. I worked as an investigative wildlife journalist for 30 years in South Africa. I have written fifteen books and hundreds of magazine articles on the subject of wildlife management and big game hunting in Africa. Five of my books are university-level text books on wildlife management. I am a university-trained ecologist; was a member of the Institute of Biology (London) for 20 years; and was a registered chartered biologist for the European Union for 20 years. I have VAST experience in the “management hunting” of elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopards and hippos (as part of my official national park work in the control of problem animals); and I pioneered the capture of black rhino in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley (1964 - 1970). My university thesis was entitled: “The Factors Affecting the Survival and Distribution of Black Rhinos in Rhodesia”. Look at my personal website if you want any further details about my experience: www.ronthomsonshuntingbooks.co.za.

Ron Thomson has 280 posts and counting. See all posts by Ron Thomson

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