Selwyn Duke
Let’s say man IS changing the climate. So what?
FacebookTwitter
By Selwyn Duke
November 26, 2024

“The temperature is rising!” “The temperature is dropping.” The temperature is staying the same.”

We argue the “facts” of climate change (even as parts of New Jersey were just buried under 11 inches of global warming). One side wants the facts to show that man is disrupting the climate, while the other wants them to show that he’s not. But an almost never posed question should be asked:

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that our industry is causing global warming. So what?

No, I’m not a guy who “just wants to see the world burn” (and that would be literally). Rather, if anthropogenic climate change were occurring, why should we assume it wouldn’t be beneficial?

Oh, it’s not just that the Earth is greener and crop yields are higher when CO2 levels are greater; it’s not just that relative warmth breeds life. It’s also this:

Some scientists have said the Earth will soon enter, or has already entered, a significant cooling phase. Others even contend that another ice age is nigh. And if this is so, any man-caused temperature increase would merely mitigate this naturally induced but deadly phenomenon.

One of these scientists was the late Professor S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric and space physics expert who had been a founding director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. “I have recently become quite concerned about ice ages and the dangers they pose to humans on our planet,” he wrote in 2015 — “and indeed to most of terrestrial ecology.”

Singer explained later in his article that there “are two kinds of ice ages”:

(i) Major (Milankovich-style) glaciations occur on a 100,000-year time-scale and are controlled astronomically. (ii) “Little” ice ages were discovered in ice cores; they have been occurring on an approx. 1000-1500-yr cycle and are likely controlled by the Sun.

The scientist then warned that the “current cycle’s cooling phase may be imminent....”

Now, this is a frightening prospect. Even the liberal New York Times admitted in 2017, reporting on a Lancet study, that “cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many deaths as hot weather.” That’s in our relatively warm time, too. What would happen during a major ice age?

Well, “The coolings are quite severe,” informed Singer. “[T]he most recent one, ending only about 12,000 years ago, covered much of North America and Europe with miles-thick continental ice sheets and led to the disappearance of (barely) surviving bands of Neanderthalers; they were displaced by the more adaptable Homo Sapiens.”

In other words, another major ice age would likely be a Hollywood-like, apocalyptic disaster. In fact, Singer insisted that we should be prepared to use scientific interventions to mitigate such an eventuality (while Bill Gates wants to do the same to cool down the Earth). To be clear, though, while Singer said that another ice age could begin tomorrow, it could also be tens of thousands of year away. And my article isn’t about hashing out the details, assessing probability, or recommending mitigation measures. (you can read Singer’s work for that). It is about this: prejudice.

Again, accepting for argument that man is significantly warming the planet (not my belief), why assume this is bad?

In reality, moderns’ thinking so often reflects a kind of misanthropism or, at least, a bias against Western-triumph-born modernity. People believing that extraterrestrials furtively visit our planet never assume the aliens’ matter-of-course environmental impact could be malign; they’re too advanced. People pondering a hunter-gatherer tribe (e.g., the North Sentinelese) generally assume they just must live “in harmony with nature” and be innocuous; they’re too primitive. Never mind that American Indians deforested stretches along, and caused the sedimentation of, the Delaware River long before Europeans’ New World arrival (to provide just one perspective-lending example). The activities of man, or modern man or Western man, depending on the precise prejudice, just must be harmful for the simple reason that he engaged in them. So, yes, racial profiling is a problem — against the human race.

In fairness, we can do and have done much to damage the environment. In fairness again, though, forested area in the U.S. is greater than it was a century back and our water and air are cleaner than they were 60 years ago. And in recent times the Great Barrier Reef has actually increased in size (this isn’t necessarily due to man’s activities). So we can also be good shepherds of the Earth.

The odd thing, though, about the misanthropic prejudice is that implicit in it is an idea that man is akin to some unnatural, artificial presence. This, coming from people who generally also believe man is himself only an animal, a mere product of evolution; in other words, just another part of nature. And, of course, whether the result of divine creation or evolutionary happenstance, part of nature (or Creation) is precisely what man is.

As for the world’s fortunes, 99.9 percent of the species of life that have ever existed are extinct, partially due to ice ages. So ironically, if man’s activities — either accidentally, intentionally or both — mitigate the coming ice age, we humans may be responsible for counteracting the next great extinction.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe or Gettr or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

© Selwyn Duke

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)

 

Stephen Stone
HAPPY EASTER: A message to all who love our country and want to help save it

Stephen Stone
The most egregious lies Evan McMullin and the media have told about Sen. Mike Lee

Siena Hoefling
Protect the Children: Update with VIDEO

Stephen Stone
FLASHBACK to 2020: Dems' fake claim that Trump and Utah congressional hopeful Burgess Owens want 'renewed nuclear testing' blows up when examined

Victor Sharpe
Any Israeli alliances should include the restoration of a just, moral, and enduring pact with the Kurdish people

Linda Kimball
Man as God: The primordial heresy and the evolutionary science of becoming God

Sylvia Thompson
Should the Village People be a part of Trump's Inauguration Ceremony? No—but I suspect they will be

Jerry Newcombe
Reflections on the Good Samaritan ethic

Pete Riehm
It’s not identities; it’s ideas!

Rev. Mark H. Creech
From ministry to need: Seeking help in my darkest hour

Jerry Newcombe
Bible sales increasing

Tom DeWeese
Change the debate and take back liberty locally

Steve A. Stone
Truth will out...maybe...someday

Curtis Dahlgren
On the need for noble mothers (and fathers)

Tom DeWeese
If you are illegal, come. We’ll give you $thousands and let you kill and rape. If you are legal, go to hell

Stanley Zir
The sky is not falling, Chicken Little, under Donald Trump
  More columns

Cartoons


Click for full cartoon
More cartoons

Columnists

Matt C. Abbott
Chris Adamo
Russ J. Alan
Bonnie Alba
Chuck Baldwin
Kevin J. Banet
J. Matt Barber
Fr. Tom Bartolomeo
. . .
[See more]

Sister sites