More Cold Weather

So here in Minnesota over the weekend we had high temperatures that had a little dash in front of the number. That's right, high temperatures of -1 degree on Saturday. Now call me crazy, but living in weather like this is bordering on insanity. Which begs the question, why are we concerned about "global warming"? More people are dying this winter from the frigid temperatures than are dying in the summer due to the heat.

Let's just assume for one second that all of these green initiatives actually could change the climate by some noticeable amount. Is this what we want? Freezing temperatures, traffic pileups on the highway, and people dying of exposure? I've got to think that if we really could stop the earth from warming up the unintended consequences would be much worse than the alternative.

I'm a big fan of all the channels that happen to fall between 55 and 59 (TLC, Discovery Channel, History Channel, Travel Channel, and National Geographic). I'm always flipping through those to find something to watch. I've noticed over the last year that about 1 in every 3 shows now is about global warming and how we are all going to die if we don't stop driving our SUV's and stop burning our incandescent bulbs. However, this past weekend I did stumble across a show that caught my interest. I have no idea what the show was called, but it makes no difference. The show discussed the Tambora volcanic explosion of 1815 which was 150 times more powerful than Mt. St. Helens. (Some other articles: #1, #2, #3). The interesting thing about this was the effect that this eruption had on global climate. Scientists have speculated that Tambora was responsible for reducing global temperatures by as much as 3 degrees Celsius. It cooled the globe so much that they even gave it a name, "Year Without a Summer."

So we can see that there is historical evidence of a natural event which had the ability to drastically change the earth's climate. And its not just Tambora, more recently we saw it with Pinatubo as well. Why then is it completely unfathomable among "scientists" today to admit that even a portion of the earth's 1 degree rise in temperature since 1900 may not have anything to do with us? If Tambora could change the average temperature on the earth three times as much as it has changed over the past 100 years, wouldn't it make sense to think that maybe there is something natural behind current climate change? Well, I'm going to discuss in my next post what exactly some of these natural phenomena may be that are causing our globe to warm.