SOLAR WARMING     Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler Thursday, 29 September 2005 It was to be expected that in response to NASA releasing satellite photos this week showing that the ice caps on Mars have been retreating several feet per year for some time now, former vice-president Al Gore claimed this was “the inevitable result of George Bush’s disastrous environmental policies and his unconscionable failure to sign the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.” At a joint press conference held with Mr. Gore, Democrat Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) denounced the warming of Mars as “demonstrating once again George Bush’s racism - Mr. Bush cares as little for the well-being of Martians as he does about African-Americans.” Democrats and enviro-loonies on space patrol aside, serious people here on earth know the NASA announcement dealt a major blow to the theory of Man-Made Global Warming (MMGW). Here’s another: Take a close look at this rock and you’ll see it’s a fossil: it bears the imprint of a leaf. The leaf is 50 million years old and is from Axel Heiberg Island in the High Arctic of Canada, 600 miles from the North Pole. It was given to me by a scientist working there while I was on one of my North Pole expeditions. He explained that 50 million years ago the Arctic Ocean was warm - not just ice free, warm. The weather back then on Axel Heiberg, which is far more north than all of Siberia, was like Florida is today - with forests, including huge redwood trees, and lots of animals like alligators and turtles. The entire earth was warm during this period known as the Eocene, which lasted some 22 million years (55-33 mya, million years ago). Al Gore probably thinks George Bush and SUVs are responsible. Clearly, according to Gore’s way of “thinking,” they also caused the Medieval Climactic Optimum between 1000 and 1300 AD, when farmers grew wine grapes in northern England and raised sheep and dairy cattle in Greenland. Eco-fascists like Gore hype the threat of “Global Warming” because they believe it is currently the best way to gain fascist control over people’s lives. Thus they hype hysteria over “greenhouse gases” - and never discuss the extraordinary benefits of more CO2 in our atmosphere. For one thing, it would wipe out hunger. The more CO2, the less water crops need. All crops with a “waxy cuticle” (a waxy coating on their leaves to resist water loss) such as wheat and corn have tiny pores called “stoma” that absorb CO2 and let water vapor out. The more CO2, the more the stooma shrink, thus the more water retained. Doubling atmospheric CO2 available to a plant halves the amount of water the plant requires. Increasing the “greenhouse gas” of carbon dioxide would thus have a huge positive effect on world agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions. Such dry regions would be able to grow a lot more food. What the eco-fascists are most desperate to deny is that however much “global warming” is taking place, it’s caused by the sun and not us. Yet the single most established correlation between earth temperatures and anything else is with sunspots. The correlation goes back over 400 years when we first got telescopes to see the sun: When sunspot activity dropped ending the Medieval Optimum, global temperatures plunged into a Little Ice Age when the Thames River in London would freeze solid. They plunged in tandem again when Charles Dickens was a young boy, so he recalled London snowstorms for his “Christmas Carol.” For 500 years, from 1400 to 1900, the northern hemisphere was cooler than average 20th century temperatures. We’re finally getting back to normal with more solar activity: Note the “Maunder Minimum” during the Little Ice Age named after astronomer E. W. Maunder, when there were no sunspots at all. The enviros dismiss the correlation as an “artifact” because there’s been no corresponding increase in solar radiation, more actual heat from the sun. What the enviros don’t, or don’t want to, understand is that it’s not the sun’s heat radiation causing a warmer earth, it’s the sun’s magnetic activity. Sunspots are an indication of magnetic activity, magnetic storms on the sun. The stronger these storms, the more they deflect the shower of cosmic rays upon the earth from outer space. Cosmic rays are streams of charged particles (mostly high energy protons) which create “condensation nuclei” when they pass through the water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere (the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere), condensing the water vapor into droplets. It’s the same effect as seen in the scientific apparatus known as a “cloud chamber” invented by C.T.R. Wilson in 1900. The more cosmic rays, the more high clouds in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere which reflect sunlight back into space, thus cooling the earth. The fewer cosmic rays, the fewer high altitude clouds, thus warming the earth. If global warming is real now, it is due to the increase in the sun’s magnetic activity deflecting the cosmic rays that would form clouds to cool the earth. NASA’s revelation of global warming on Mars is going to trigger hearings in Congress by the House Science Committee, investigating how the sun may be responsible for global warming. During these hearings, a very interesting alternative to the Kyoto Treaty and related eco-fascist scams will be proposed. It’s an easy, simple, and cost-free way to increase lower stratospheric cloud formation, counteracting the sun’s deflection of the cosmic rays responsible for high cloud formation. Ready? The solution to global warming is to let the world’s airlines use high-sulfur jet fuel while flying at cruise altitude. All intercontinental jetliners have multiple fuel tanks. During take-off, reaching cruise altitude, descent and landing, they would use tanks with low-sulfur jetfuel. But at cruise altitude, flying in the lower stratosphere at 35,000’ or higher, switching to tanks with high-sulfur jetfuel would create denser, wider contrails with sulfate aerosols serving as cloud condensation nuclei, mimicking the effect of cosmic rays. The clouds so created would be long-lasting, and brighter with a high albedo reflecting more sunlight back into space. Thousands of jetliners flying high over the planet every day would create a cooler earth, and no more global warming. The sulfate aerosols are high enough in the stratosphere not to precipitate and cause acid rain - and high-sulfur jetfuel is less expensive than low-sulfur. This solution to global warming isn’t just cost-free, it saves money. It’s perfectly designed to drive human-hating eco-fascists completely nuts. It’s a solution too good for rational conservatives to pass up. Even the ones in Congress.