Jim:
Regarding the recent Odd ‘n Sods link to the article about “The Prophet of Climate Change”: This planet on which we live has been “globally warmed” before, during that episode of time sometimes referred-to as the “Medieval Warm Period”. This warming (which is acknowledged to have been even warmer than our present-day) occurred without benefit of (the) Industrial Revolution, or even of a large human population. It (the Warming) waxed into being beginning around 750-850 A.D., waned, and then moved into the next bit of planetary-cycle, often thought of as (the) “Little Ice Age”.
This globe on which we all reside has seen these warm/cold cycles wax & wane for long before humans became the (supposedly; insects are said to be more widespread) dominant species. As I indicated above, the cycles have come and gone with little or no previous influence from humanity. Hysteria (and, making an “time ‘honored'” institution of trading “carbon credits” worldwide) aside, from where do these supposedly “experts” think that we humans have put our planet into “irreversible” warming, and that “6 billion people will perish by the end of the century”?
The quicksand, as it were, of hysteria is that nobody thusly involved wishes to be on the back-end of the proverbial horse. “Jumping on the bandwagon” is a very old and time honored way of “proving” to ones’ peers that they (the jumper[‘s]) have “gotten with the program”. I should know; in my time I’ve shouted-down common sense, jumped on bandwagons, and altogether told intelligent & common-sense to “take a hike”. In my case, however, I’ve come to my senses and decided to “Investigate, (but) not pile-on the wagon of hysteria” (noted above, a sad-to-say, but increasingly-popular, social-phenomena). Truly yours, – Ben L.