12 minute read
It Poisons Our Lives
Felines gifted with fur possessing an absorbing darkness were subject to frenzied hate and mass persecution at the hands of humans fuelled by mysticism and superstition about the changing world around them. This regrettable period of our history came during a cold snap in our climate that saw the withering of crops, the freezing of vast stretches of previously sailable ocean, the reduction of Summer and the expansion of Winter. These hard times followed a period of pleasant warmth, when the land was carpeted with fields of sun-ripened grain, seafaring was easy, the shortening of Winter and the lengthening of Summer. Climate Change is a key topic of our century; its influence upon our lives is a frequent topic in the media. However, it is presented as an entirely new meteorological phenomenon when identical events have happened at multiple points throughout recorded history, casting a doubt on the modern-day idea that humans are a direct influence on the climate of our planet.
The Earth is perpetually enveloped in an ethereal mix of atmospheric compounds which capture sunlight rebounding upwards towards the star ocean upon contact with the Earth. The gaseous blanket captures this reflected heat and causes it to radiate earthbound in a multitude of directions. This cosmic insulation is a woven mix of mainly water vapour, the stratospheric component of greatest abundance contributed by the evaporation of water from the surface of our planets oceans, nitrous oxide, released initially into the air through the rendering of primordial rock involved in the chaotic formation of our planet, and carbon dioxide, naturally contributed to our atmosphere through animal respiration and volcanic eruption. Out all of three of these chemical compounds, it is carbon dioxide that receives intense media focus, political sloganeering, and the sharp tongue of climate change activists.
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This is due to evidence that the levels of carbon dioxide has been increasingly rapidly since the embrace of the Industrial Age in the early 1800s. Outside of the breath of animals and being expunged from Earth’s innards from fiery volcanoes, carbon dioxide is the principal by-product from using oil, gas and coal as source of energy. These materials are termed ‘fossil fuels’ due to their origin of being the bodies of fallen prehistoric animals and plants rendered through time, pressure and heat to be magicked into substances yielding a great amount of energy upon combustion. They are lit with a match and emit a much greater deal of energy in response; this energy efficiency is what has made them the prime choice as an energy source of humans. When burned, carbon dioxide is emitted in great volumes as a main by-product of this process and this has met the ire of climate change campaigners.
This is due to their belief that human action the central cause of the climate changes our planet is currently experiencing. Machines powered through electricity, which is generated through burning fossil fuels to generate steam from great vats of water to turn specialised turbines. This process powers our electronics and if one considers the sheet number of devices, equipment and machines a single person uses in their everyday existence and multiply this by billions of people, the amount of fossil fuel that must be burned to provide this 24/7 supply is monumental, along with the carbon dioxide it produces. This collective increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide as a result of supplying electricity over the decades is said to have ‘thickened’ the Earth’s atmospheric layer, causing greater retention of reflected sunbeams which triggers an increase in Earth’s temperature and thus creates climate change.
Despite the narrative around climate change discussion, that ‘man made’ climate change is a statement of fact without opposition, historical documentation is wholly contrary to the conclusion that scientists have unanimously agreed upon. ‘Warm Period’ is the term attributed to epochs in time when civilisations experienced an increase of the temperatures in the world around them and there exists several of them in documented history. The earliest of these eras was during the time of the Ancient Romans, appropriately titled, ‘The Roman Warm Period’. Almost twothousand years in the future, researchers must use a variety of proxy indicators to calculate findings from this distant time in history, notably the growth patterns within mollusc shells and tree rings. These beings possess near-immortality and hasten their growth in favourable conditions, leaving visual markers as indicators of the environment around them during their long life. Indeed, it was concluded that there was an increase in temperature to foster a more favourable environment for such creatures. A second type of evidence would be surviving historical documents from the era under investigation. Successor of Aristotle at the Peripatetic School, the philosopher Theophrastus wrote that date trees were capable of growing in Greece. If true, then it means that Ancient Greece had an almost identical temperature to Greece of the present day, a Greece that is supposedly experiencing a never-before-seen increase in atmospheric temperatures.
The next Warm Period would not be until over one thousand years later with the arrival of ‘The Medieval Warm Period.’ The medieval times reported to have experienced a great increase in temperatures during 900AD to 1300AD, with scientists again reconstructing the climate of scaled dragons and chivalrous knights through climate proxies and historical documentation. Tree rings proved that warmer conditions were present and historical documentation was thick with writings of bountiful harvests following the end of seemingly never-ending Summers. There is some division in what the exact temperatures of The Medieval Warm Period were, but it could have even been one or two degrees Celsius warmer than now. Being centuries in the future we will never certainly know, but if this is accurate, then reports from climate activists have proven themselves to be nothing but scaremongering, especially since medieval writers speak of their world being one of agreeable weather and agricultural success. Warmer temperatures also melted much of the Arctic glaciers that had reached down into the North Sea and allowed the conquest of much of Europe by the Vikings. The freed-up waters permitted them easy sea travel and what is missing from the elaborate books of days are reports of a great number of settles submerged beneath rising waters.
If both epochs had temperatures comparable to, if not surpassing, those of our world in the present, then it serves as a silver bullet to the manmade climate change argument. These revolve around the issue of our changing climate are centred around the idea that our industrial emissions, notably those as a result of fossil fuel combustion, are to blame for our current predicament. The existence of similar phenomenon in times of history preceding the industrial revolution nullify the power of this perspective. The Ancient Greeks, Romans, and those living in the medieval times had no mechanised productivity that would require the mass burning of coal, gas and oil. Therefore, there is no possibility that carbon dioxide caused the heightened atmospheric temperatures they experienced.
The legitimacy of carbon dioxide levels having a contributory role in the changing planetary climate takes a further blow from a graphic on the website of Met Office displaying the hottest and coolest average years in the United Kingdom. It is a horizontal panel with strips of blues and reds of varying intensities, each one signifying a year from 1884 to 2020. Considering the narrative that more carbon dioxide is perpetually increasing year on year, which would mean that the atmospheric layer is becoming denser which would supposedly retain more reflected sunlight to heat the earth, why is the diagram not a steady transition from blue, indicating lower average temperatures, to red, indicating high average temperatures? At present it is a mix of reds and blues, becoming almost wholly red after the year 2000.
There is also the problem about how humanity would go about solving the proposed issue of carbon dioxide production. Coal, gas and oil are in great demand and always will be until there is a substitute. Climate initiatives are often set by governments, but rarely met with the deadline postponed by several decades due to the impossibility of finding a solution. Such pacts and collective aims are pointless when one looks at carbon dioxide emissions globally and not specifically on a European level. Doing so will reveal that taxes on petrol and investment in wind farm technology and the theoretically miniscule returns they might bring are dwarfed by the carbon emissions produced by industrial powerhouse nations like China. The rippling might of oriental productivity commands a great hunger for energy and fossil fuels are what is on their menu. Climate activists will make the plea that such countries can be reasoned into their own position, but seeing that investment in renewables in China was dropped from $76 billion in 2017 to $29 billion in 2019, with 2018 seeing the largest Chinese emission volume produced on record, such platitudes seem to fall short. Especially with the United States of America, our worlds global power that often leads on collective global aims, withdrawing from climate initiatives.
There is also a one-track mindset within the subject of climate change; it is wholly a negative phenomenon. This is simply incorrect. I can only believe that this is because we are currently in the midst of our own Warm Period. The Warm Periods of the Romans and the medieval era saw the steady increase in temperature heralding an era of wonderful bounty. For us, food production has been increasing year on year and it can only be attributed to our crops being bathed in the warm light of the sun. This can be seen down south in England, where there is a burgeoning wine and champagne industry. Throughout the ages, vineyards could only thrive within sun-drenched continental nations, but the recent warming of our atmosphere has created perfect conditions for these traditionally French and Italian alcohols within the land of Richard the Lionheart. This newfound industry possesses such vigour that it is valued at almost £300 million in 2020, growing at over 15% annually and is predicted to employ between twenty-thousand and thirty-thousand people over the following two decades directly related to vineyards alone, not to mention the shared prosperity touching people’s lives in the restaurant and hospitality sectors. None of these sunny uplands would have been scalable without the gift of warmer weather.
Economic prosperity like this will be especially valued in the coming months due to the pending economic doom following coronavirus containment measures and the past few months should be the swansong for the mainstream endorsement of climate activism and initiatives. Denying citizens their right to work forced the British government to enforce a ‘lockdown’ onto the entirety of its population. Measures included limiting the number of people that one could socialise with and set limits on the distance and frequency one could travel from their home. This made normal working life and impossibility for the vast majority of people who had to be placed onto the government’s ‘furlough’ scheme, involving the state subsidising individual worker pay by 80%. However, the lack of revenue brought in by firms during this time has led to the formation of ‘zombie’ employment kept alive by government subsidy alone. Not only has this emptied the treasury, it has deferred a labour market shock when hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people will be put out into the world to find a new job. This will lead to a sudden drop in the volume of money flowing around the economy in the form of a lack of payments for goods and services as people choose to save and minimised their expenditure since an economic hellscape surrounds them. This reduced cashflow has a knock-on effect by a considerable reduction in valueadded tax, which means less money for the treasury to recoup the loss from spending to cover the hole made by the coronavirus furlough scheme in the government’s purse. By Winter, with record levels of unemployment and poverty, the government will be forced to instil clarity in their minds and operate on a pragmatic level. This means embracing all forms of possible employment, like the quickly growing vineyard sector, and curtailing unnecessary spending, with funding for subjects like climate awareness being the first to be rescinded.
Unfortunately, the funding for such activities and education is plentiful. The Scottish government committing over £7 million in funding to a variety of associations and enterprises across fifty-one districts who aim to educate the population on the details of man-made climate change. Listing on the government website under the title, Scottish Government Funding To Climate Change Projects, most organisations get well over £100 thousand in funding, with a sizable portion reaching near £200 thousand. Flushed with cash, I expected these organisations to be terraforming the areas in which they operate and purchasing carbon-friendly appliances for residents living in their area. They operate no more than occasional film-nights, talks, and workshops, no more than what a society without a budget would do at this university. It is difficult to see how such fiscally reckless behaviour will be tolerated in the approaching economic fallout.
As well as wasting money, discussion and focus on carbon-dioxide-induced climate wastes an inordinate amount of time and energy, diverting millions of hours on winding paths leading to no-where whilst neglecting real action that would have a tangible effect on the world around them. I am referring to the choice of climate change activism over the realm of ecology. As discussed earlier in this article, there is very little we as a collective group within a country, or even a set of countries, can do about the levels of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, which implies these levels even matter. However, even as an individual, we can have an enormous impact on the world immediately around us. In June this year, The Mammal Society, published a report stating that a quarter of British mammals where at risk of extinction and the World Wildlife Fund released their own report showing that animals on a global level are experiencing a catastrophic decline. The origins of the demise of these animals were because of habitat destruction through human activity, notably through the logging of forests, draining of wetlands, polluting lakes and rivers and the cultivation of meadows for the purposes of agriculture. Not once is climate change identified as the malignant force. The solution to a changing planetary climate, if there is one, is at the depth of distant, uncharted waters we have no chance of reaching. We need to revaluate the world around us and reach a conclusion about where to go from here. We are nearing the precipice of economic collapse alongside the ruination of our ecological world. We must live in reality; focus on our surroundings and shape them into our vision.
