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
