I was very surprised when I stumbled on an old U.S. Department of Agriculture article from 1908 entitled, "The So-Called Change of Climate in the Semi-Arid West". Clearly there were alarmists spouting off about human caused climate change to such an extent that it warranted a rebuttal 103 years ago, and I would say it was soundly rebutted as the poppycock it was then -- and is now to a large extent, as cows continue to be touted as the greatest cause of global warming, and a vegan diet necessary for us common folks:
"The former Vice President also said we need to initiate an organic vegetarian diet for the general population since industrial agriculture is contributing to the relentless, growing problem of global warming. According to Gore, meat eating has prompted forests to clear due to higher demands for cattle in the interview, adding that synthetic nitrogen use in fertilizers continues to contribute to global warming." (Al Gore, 8/29/11)
 |
| Sunday, August 28 - View of our Parched Pastures and a Fire Top above the Trees -- on Monday evening there was another fire so close that big particles of ash fell around us at the cattle pens just to the left in this photo. |
The Texas drought is not a weather event brought on by human caused climate change (nor some divine judgment by an angry God as the likes of a Louis Farrakhan tell their followers), and neither is Hurricane Irene a storm to be blamed on climate change. Certainly, the level of carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere is a factor in our weather, but to presume that the human and livestock activities on the land mass of the United States can somehow change the climate of the world, for better or worse, is simply preposterous. We can't allow ourselves to be used to "set an example for the world" that literally destroys our economy while the rest of the world laughs their butts off in to the next century -- and our EPA is now being used as a tool to backdoor accomplish that so-called example.
The drought of 1886/1887 that I blogged a couple of weeks back was a severe Texas and Plains area drought, much like the one occurring now. Coincidentally, just a mere couple years later, in May 1889, there was a "great storm" that severely impacted the northeast, and caused the catastrophic Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania. This storm occurred on the heals of quite abnormally high levels of spring and summer rainfall in the northeast. Sound familiar? There has been well above average rainfall in much of the northeast this spring and summer. This was the weather forecast for Memorial Day 1889 in Pennsylvania, from The Tribune :
"A Storm of considerable energy has developed in Southwestern Texas, which is now centered in the Mississippi Valley, moving northeastward. General rain has fallen within the track of the storm. Elsewhere fair weather has prevailed. The temperature is unusually low throughout the lake region, heavy frost having occurred in many places and light frosts are also reported from the county districts in this locality, with no perceptible damage, however. The temperature has risen slightly in all other districts. The barometer has fallen decidedly in the Mississippi Valley with manifestations of cyclonic disturbances, and is highest in the extreme Northwest."I certainly wish that the above weather forecast was actually for Labor Day Weekend 2011, without the subsequent heavy rain and flooding in the Northeast! No doubt in the days that followed the devastation of the great Johnstown Flood there was a creepy person somewhere at a podium postulating about God's divine judgment on Pennsylvania. Hopefully, someone laid him out with a good punch of divine judgment to his belly paunch.
Did you know there is now yet another factor of great import in projecting carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and will require new 'climate change' analysis models? Check this out: Nitrogen in Rocks Could Help Counter Climate Change. Now why is this not headline news this morning all over the world? And just what else is out there yet to be discovered about the resourcefulness of this grand and ancient earth we all call home?
 |
| J.West's El Presidente standing in a patch of green that remains over our sewer, it is rare for the cows to ever eat this grass. What must he think looking out over his pasture at nothing but dead grass and worm eating cattle egrets? Is he blaming himself for Climate Change? |
Here are some excerpts from the 1908 U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's 'The So-Called Change in Climate . . .' :
"It is the man that has changed, not the climate, and the face of nature has changed with efforts far exceeding those of the early eastern pioneers. The western man who has observed the wilderness blossom as the rose - decries his own power when he charges to the account of change of climate the blessings resulting from his own initiative. It required much more than the buzzing of the drones while the climate was "changing" to make orchards, meadows, grain fields, and vineyards in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Perseverance placed the city of Denver on the site of the Indian tepee in the valley of the upper Platte, and "change of climate " did not plant Salt Lake City in the deserts of Utah."
"Droughts, hot winds, and high temperatures are not impossible in any section at any time. Francis Parkman says that during the summer and fall of 1764, at the time of Pontiac's war, a great drought prevailed over the region north of the Ohio River, and British soldiers suffered great hardships in navigating the streams. Yet the settler had not then had much chance with his ax, and the lands were covered with an interminable forest."
"Prof. Alfred J. Henry, in Climatology of the United States, says:
'The greatest drought this country has experienced in the last one hundred years, both as to Intensity and extent of territory covered, culminated in the middle Mississippi and Missouri valleys in 1894, and in the Lake region and Atlantic coast districts in 1895. The drought of 1894 was the culmination of a period of deficient precipitation and high temperatures that began during the early summer of 1893. . .''In September, 1908, the Susquehanna River was lower than it had been in more than one hundred years, and instances were published of boys playing ball in the river bed of the upper Ohio.''In the Middle States, as well as the entire region between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River north of Texas, the great hot wave of July, 1901, broke records in many sections, the temperatures ranging from 109° to 116° in the shade. These figures were published by the Weather Bureau at the time, and clearly show that abnormally high temperatures or hot winds are not confined to any particular locality.'"
"The semiarid States are contending against stupendous forces in the form of the great air currents, which are charged with billions of tons of moisture and dust before they come within a thousand miles of the Middle West. . . . It is evident, then, that the cultivation and forestation of the semiarid region, even though (if) they had proceeded much farther than they have, could not change the climate. . . In spite of the great differences in density of population and in the proportion of land improved, the records show that no single part of the areas mentioned, or any other part of the vast territory remaining in the country, has been exempt from droughty periods."
" . . . climatic changes have been as numerous as the epochs in geological history. . . If the ancient ancestors of the mound builders could be aroused from their slumbers, their medicine men would relate a hoary legend to the effect that the waters of the southern seas once tossed over the western plains, and the great Southwest and washed the feet of the Rockies."
"Aristotle, the sage, one of the greatest of scientific observers, flourished about two thousand three hundred years ago; since his day there have been many scientific observers; yet in all these years there has been no record of a permanent change of climate in any part of the known world."
"Western Asia, northern Africa, and portions of North America were called deserts in remote ages, and we still believe they will continue deserts during the vast periods of time to come. The Chaldeans, ancient Persians, Ninevites, and Egyptians exerted untold effort in producing verdure (green growth) that succeeding peoples have allowed to disappear before the blistering desolation. Geological evidence shows that extensive forests once flourished in these regions, and remains of highly creditable irrigating works have lately been discovered in the Arizona desert. But man's efforts did not change the climate in these regions. When his efforts ceased, the desert reoccupied the territory which he had for a time subdued to his needs."
". . . such as the great storm of 1889, originated by the intermingling of masses of warm air from the equator and cold air from the pole, and which cover a greater extent of the earth's surface than the territory of the United States, and then imagine the influence of any semiarid State lying in the pathway of such a disturbance, we can understand that a whole series of States, much less the man with his plow, is unable to control climate."
Source: Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1908; The So-Called Change of Climate in the Semiarid West, by Richard H. Sullivan, Local Forecaster, Weather Bureau, Wichita, Kansas