The End of the Fourth Interglacial Period?

I can't help myself. Just too much good stuff coming in too fast.

The Canadian National Post (gotta love those Canadians, not giving in to the AGW cultists like their "superior" brethren to the immediate south) has an article about the fact that the current Northern Hemisphere snow cover is at its greatest extent since 1966. It goes on to discuss new record low temperature readings and snowfall amounts in various parts of the world this winter. It mentions the apparent restoration of the Arctic ice cap (though they only started measuring it in 1972). Then a new theory accounting for the ice melt is reviewed, with the implication that such melting may be following a 40 year cycle. (And remember, the records started only in 1972, which is just 36 years ago.) It concludes with a brief mention of sunspot inactivity.

So the glaciers are reforming. Another Ice Age is on its way.

Not!

We are just seeing another side of the cycle. You know, the cycle where things, like for example temperature, go up, and then they go down.

If one were to assume that the downs indicate the coming of an ice age, you would be ridiculed. But when the cultists assume that the ups indicate the coming of a runaway global barbecue ("Earth on a spit!"), they are merely being prudent when they demand we implement draconian measures to try to prevent it (especially when such measures won't even slow it down).

Sounds like somebody believes in double standards here.

But then, the liberal left has always believed in double standards, one set for themselves and another for everybody else.

Give me a break.

AGW Indeed! More Like Heliogenic Climate Control

AGW zealots must be having a great deal of heartburn this winter. Not only has there been record snowfall amounts throughout the Midwest, but now come new reports that futher expose the folly that is AGW.

First comes a report from the Canadian Broadcast Company that the ice cap in the Arctic is expanding back to near normal levels, and that in some places the ice is actually getting thicker. Why? Because of the extended severe cold weather in the Arctic this year.

Also, recent observation of a virtual absence of sunspots for neary two years is making solar researchers uneasy. They feel this indicates some change in the internal workings of the sun. The last two times something like this was seen was in the 1650's and again in the late 1790's-1820's. Both instances presaged decreases in solar irradiation that caused global temperatures to drop; the second one caused what it now called the Little Ice Age. (And a local touch -- an astrophysicist gave a lecture at the University of Texas-Tyler -- yes, right here in Texas! -- saying pretty much the same thing, that the solar variability is the major driver of Earth's climate.)

During both of these periods of global cooling, much more human misery was caused than any AGW prophet of doom has so far predicted. Some of these solar researchers are concerned we are now heading for another such period (possibly as long as a century) of global cooling beginning before or at least by 2020.

I bring to your attention the following quote from the Investor Business Daily article quoted in the blog post I cited above:

As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.

For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

I thank Thomas Lifson for putting me on to the first of these reports, and Marc Sheppard for the second. Both posts were at a site called American Thinker that I just discovered and to which I will definitely be returning.

I also cannot say this any better than Mr. Sheppard did in his post, so I won't try:

The unremitting mulish refusal to accept the yellow dwarf star at the center of our solar system as the force that drives our climate and weather - despite all overwhelming correlating evidence -- is simply mind-boggling.

I Haven't Forgotten I Have a Medical Mind

No, I haven't forgotten that I have a medical mind, and that the original purpose of this blog was to discuss issues of somewhat medical matters. Looking back, I see that the last few posts are beginning to make this look like an anti-global warming screed. Rest assured, I shall be soon returning to more medical matters. It's just that when I run across more pieces of the ever accumulating piles of evidence of the absolute insanity of AGW, and I hear more and more of our political leaders falling into lockstep with the AGW zealots, promising to spend more and more of our tax dollars -- no, more importantly, my tax dollars -- on this foolishness..... Well, it just makes me want to go postal in a different direction.

So there will be more discussions of medical issues. I will get around to telling you why your medicines cost too much, hopefully before the elections in November so you'll be able to realize just how clueless most of our leaders and lawmakers are. I plan to take on the presidential candidates misguided proposals for "healthcare reform" (and not a single one of them says "healthcare financing reform"). And I may even be able to crow about another prophecy fulfilled, but I'm still waiting to see if my crystal ball is going to turn out to be cracked or not (hint: it's about the November election).

But I just Tivo'ed National Geographic Channel's Six Degrees Could Change the World and I'm sure it will be as juicy a target for ridicule as was Al Gore's An Inconvenient Election -- oops, sorry -- An Inconvenient Truth. And I just won't be able to resist.