Friday, February 4, 2011

Global Warming? I Don’t THINK So!


Global Warming? I Don’t THINK So!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet


As I sit here tapping out theses few thoughts on the keyboard, I am awaiting the arrival of more sleet – and rain—and maybe a few stray snowflakes. And I am in sub-tropical North Carolina -- just four blocks from my city’s own, centrally located, downtown, SWAMP!

Last month we had to shovel four inches of “Global Warming” (which looked suspiciously like snow) off our driveway. That was the second snowstorm this winter in our little piece of paradise where the average temperature is somewhere in the 70’s.

It seems fact is finally catching up to fiction.

Here’s the thing. The truth is, well, THE TRUTH. It has the tendency to stand up to all attempts to distort it, or to suppress it. “The Truth” will out, as the old adage goes. Indeed, it will.
We have been telling you, and anyone who would stand still long enough, that global warming was a hoax; perhaps the greatest hoax ever to be played out on mankind. But the propaganda machine, commonly referred to as the Mainstream Media had latched onto the glamorous ruse and continued to proclaim the mantra that all the earth is going to succumb to rising temperatures and, well, basically we’re all gonna DIE! Scared the hell out of a whole lot of people.

Now, I’m an ole country boy, literally, having been raised on the edge of a pine forest amongst the red clay hills of piedmont South Carolina. I was the first generation off the farm. My father, raised a farmer, taught me to read the weather much as one would read a book. If you look closely, nature will forecast coming climatic events in ways a person not versed in the science of meteorology can interpret in useful ways. Every country boy and gal of my generation knows exactly want I am talking about.

One of the most important lessons my father taught me about projecting changes in the climate was this. Never project more than a day, or two, into the future, and never, ever, expect to be correct in your forecast every time. Rather, expect to be wrong, and plan accordingly.

Even today, I measure and record the rainfall, the relative humidity, the barometric pressure, the dew/frost point, the 24-hour high temperature, the 24-hour low temperature, the direction of the winds and the speed of those winds, as well as the sky conditions every single day. And yes, I do report this information to a major university every day.

I am connected to the weather, I think, because my roots still derive sustenance from my farmer ancestors to whom weather was a way of life, indeed, a deciding factor in whether they fed their families – or not. It was of extreme importance to them and somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I perceive genetic echoes of that importance and feel the urge, yet, to maintain a “weather eye” upon the skies.

I tell you this only to underscore the fact that when I write of the global warming hoax, I am not just making use of someone else’s terminology to, hopefully, sway your political philosophy, one way, or the other. No. I warn of what I honestly believe is a hoax, because I do not see it, nor do I sense it.

In fact, what I DO see and sense, is just the opposite.

Nature is slowly but surely cooling down the earth.

Allow me to make an analogy, if you please. Suppose you threw a ball straight up as hard as you could. When that ball reaches the apogee of its climb, for a very brief moment in time -- it actually stops. It is neither going up, nor down. Then it slowly begins to fall back to earth gaining speed as it falls.

That is where I think the earth is today – the apogee. Temperatures are, generally speaking, flat at the moment. They are not climbing, nor falling.

See, the earth goes through warming and cooling periods – naturally. These run in cycles of roughly 11,500 years.

For a rather long time now, we have been coming out of the latest warming period and are at the point where direction changes (the apogee) and we are about to begin the cooling cycle. I hasten to add that, as my father taught me, I must expect to be wrong. Therefore, I urge you to do your own research on this and satisfy yourself, one way, or the other.

Here’s the thing: If this ole country boy is correct this time, then we can expect more winters like this one – only worse. I expect the winters to slowly lengthen and grow more intense. In fact, I am convinced we are about to begin the slow plunge back into the next cooling period some would call a “new ice age.”

There are all sorts of scientific names for this progression and lots of scientific data supporting and disproving what I have just expressed in the form of an opinion. You may believe – or disbelieve. I wouldn’t blame you either way.

But, I will tell you this: My family is preparing for the expected cooling tend. We are taking sensible steps to prepare our living quarters for the prolonged winters I expect are ahead of us.

The frantic, near hysterical, warnings of a global meltdown, of coastal cities underwater, of polar bears endangered, when in fact their numbers are growing, is nothing more that high comedy, very entertaining, but extremely costly to our nation’s treasury. It will be even more costly when, "the powers that be" discover all the money spent on preparations for global warming was wasted and should have been spent of global cooling.

Hey! I could be wrong. But, experience leads me to believe that we are in for a lot more cold – and – a lot less warm.

J. D. Longstreet

No comments:

Post a Comment