Bad news on the climate

DUBLIN, N.H. — The Old Farmer's Almanac is going further out on a limb than usual this year, not only forecasting a cooler winter, but looking ahead decades to suggest we are in for global cooling, not warming.

Based on the same time-honored, complex calculations it uses to predict weather, the Almanac hits the newsstands on Tuesday saying a study of solar activity and corresponding records on ocean temperatures and climate point to a cooler, not warmer, climate, for perhaps the next half century.

"We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes," writes meteorologist and climatologist Joseph D'Aleo. "Studying these and other factor suggests that cold, not warm, climate may be our future."

It remains to be seen, said Editor-in-Chief Jud Hale, whether the human impact on global temperatures will cancel out or override any cooling trend.

"We say that if human beings were not contributing to global warming, it would become real cold in the next 50 years," Hale said.

This is bad news for two groups of people. The first are the worshipers in the First Church of Global Warming. Global warming has been the best hobgoblin the left has ever manufactured as a means of terrorizing the masses into surrendering their wealth and liberty. If it finally becomes untenable they simply don't have a replacement hobgoblin warming up in the bullpen to replace it.

You see the big global chill which is coming upon us is caused by changes in solar output. It is completely beyond the ability of Man to alter it in any way whatsoever. Therefore global cooling cannot be used as an excuse for raising taxes or increasing regulation.

Worse for the left the increasing cost of heating our homes will cause the pressure to drill for our own oil reserves to intensify.

The other group which will be harmed by global cooling is everyone else in the world. Contrary to the hysteria of the left-wing global warming wackjobs a warmer earth would be a good thing. Historians call the climate of around 6000 years ago (the time when human civilization arose) the "climate optimum". It was eight degrees warmer then than it is now.

Global cooling, on the other hand, will decrease the growing season in the world's most fertile farming areas. It will cause sharp reductions in the global food supply and sharp increases in food prices. This will lead to famine in poorer areas and leave the populations of most of the nations of Central America, South America, Asia and Africa vulnerable to outbreaks of pandemic disease.

If you doubt me consider that it was the stress on the population of Europe caused by the food shortages brought about by the "Little Ice Age" of the Middle Ages which opened the door to the bubonic plague which killed anywhere from 30-60% of the population.

The greatest threat we face is that Western governments are so invested in global warming alamrism (because of the opportunities for growing government power) that they will be unable, or unwilling, to shift gears and engage in the kind of planning and preparation which would mitigate the consequences of the coming cool down.

John Ringo's latest novel The Last Centurion deals with global cooling a worldwide influenza pandemic and a government (headed by a president known as "the Bitch") which remains committed to the religion of global warming even as the nation freezes.