Worried about Warming? What about Cooling?

While most of the global elite and politicians and media are worried that human action will usher in global warming, the more likely scenario for the next thirt years or more is global cooling.

And while some warming would be mostly good for people and planet, cooling would not. That’s the testimony of history. Humanity has always done better in warmer than in colder periods in history. Crops grow better, so food is more abundant. Cold snaps kill ten times as many people per day as heat waves. Our immune systems do better in warmer than in colder temperatures. Not surprisingly, most people, as they age, prefer to migrate from cold to warm climates, not the opposite.

Nonetheless, climate alarmists keep ringing alarm bells about global warming—though there’s been no statistically significant increase in global temperature in over 20 years. And they want us to replace abundant, affordable, reliable, instant-on-demand energy from fossil fuels with scarce, expensive, unreliable, sometimes non-existent energy from wind, solar, and other “renewables.” That’s the path to poverty, and poverty’s the path to poor health and high death rates.

What’s worse, it’s exactly the opposite of what we need if global cooling takes hold. And there is good reason to think it will.

As Anthony Watts reports,

There’s a lot of evidence mounting that solar cycle 25 will usher in a new grand solar minimum. Since about October 2005, when the sun’s magnetic activity went into a sharp fall, solar activity has been markedly lower, with solar cycle 24 being the lowest in over 100 years.

Why’s that important? Because solar minima consistently bring cooler global temperatures, and those reduce agricultural production, which reduces food consumption, which leads to poor health and rising death rates.
Watts provides these graphs to illustrate what’s happening with solar irradiance and sunspots—indicators of the amount of energy emitted by the sun and thus warming the earth:
Interplanetary magnetic field – Image from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Solar cycle 24 – Image from NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
Daily observations of the number of sunspots since 1 January 1900 according to Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC). The thin blue line indicates the daily sunspot number, while the dark blue line indicates the running annual average. The recent low sunspot activity is clearly reflected in the recent low values for the total solar irradiance. Data source: WDC-SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels. Last day shown: 28 February 2018. Last diagram update: 1 March 2018. (Credit climate4you.com)

He quotes Simon Constable from Forbes:

The question is whether we will enter another grand solar minimum just like the Maunder minimum which if history is a guide would mean a period of much colder weather winters and summers. More than a few experts with whom I speak regularly believe that we shall enter such a grand minimum along with the resulting bone-chilling weather.

If that happens, then there will be profound influences on the economy, including possible crop failures and rising energy use for home and workplace heating. Or in other words, expect bigger bills for food and energy. After a period in which the supply of both has been increasingly abundant then this change will likely come as a shock to many people and likely the broader global economy as well.

And if all of that happens, the world will need abundant, affordable, reliable energy more than ever to offset the negative impacts of cold temperatures on agriculture and the rest of our economies.

Will we have it if we’ve followed the global warming alarmists’ advice and replaced coal, oil, and natural gas with wind and solar? Don’t bet on it.

1 thought on “Worried about Warming? What about Cooling?”

  1. This information could be beneficial for some who are contemplating retirement and relocating to a state which could be impacted to a greater degree by these trends.

    Besides that, my wife hates the cold!

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