Monday, September 03, 2007

Globalonly - Now Mapmakers Stoke Global Warming Hysteria

Today another shameless article appeared that trumpeted the horrors of man-caused global warming.

Except that the article's headline did not match what was actually presented.

Dramatic pictures that show how global warming is changing world maps, Daily Mail, September 3, 2007


The effects of global climate change are clear to see on the latest world maps.

In the four years since the last edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World went on sale, cartographers have been forced to redraw coastlines and reclassify types of land.

It all sounds pretty convincing that global warming is being documented in redrawn maps, until you actually read the article and find that the examples are of vast changes caused by poor water management. Almost all the changes are to lakes and rivers, not because of the effects of global warming, but because water has been diverted primarily for agricultural purposes.

The only examples of sea level concerns are the usual: Tuvalu, low lying islands in the Pacific; Bangladesh, where many factors, including subsidence from ground water extraction and other causes could be involved; and a shrinking sea shore at a remote village in Alaska.

From 1949 to 1960, and from 1998 to present, I have lived near Point Arena on the Northern California coast. In that 58-year period, I have often visited places along this coast that appear now to be just as they were then. Why are rising seas such a problem elsewhere, when there is no evidence of significant change here?

Why is Tuvalu always in jeopardy? Since most scientific studies show that Tuvalu is not being inundated by rising seas, it appears that the Tuvaluans are grasping at the profit potential of claiming global-warming victimhood, which is probably greater than their current primary souces of income: domain name hosting, and postage stamps.

The good people of Tuvalu were probably devastated when recent studies actually found a drop in their sea level. They may be stuck on Tuvalu for a long time.

The article voices concern that sea levels could be rising 3mm per year in the vicinity of Bangladesh.

Sea levels rising 3mm per year? They have been rising at that rate, or much higher, since the end of the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago. For the uninformed, total sea level increase in that period is over 400 feet, or an average of over 7mm per year. And all that was without any help from mankind, apart from an occasional overcooked mastodon steak. Mankind has created far more sea intrusion from over pumping ground water causing subsidence - over 20 feet in some places like the California Central Valley - than could ever be attached to mankind's paltry addition of about two percent to naturally created CO2.

Look at the examples given in the article, and ask yourself if it doesn’t seem the problems are caused by poor water use practices, not global warming due to mankind's contribution to total greenhouse gases.

Global warming has always been a natural phenomenon that the Left has been looking to blame on economic development and increasing prosperity.

The Left worships absolute control over human activities, as evidenced by their love of totalitarian governments. The Left has never been comfortable with economically free individuals having personal property rights, and looks at increased regulation to stop “man-made” global warming as their last, best hope to regain the control over individuals lost when dicatatorships and monarchies were swept away by democratic institutions.

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