By CRAIG CAMPBELL
I was out on my deck the other day, a nice fall afternoon in Eagle River, enjoying the beautiful view of autumn leaves changing to a brilliant yellow and gold, with Hiland Mountain rising just behind my property, and the vast Eagle River Valley stretching out to Goat Mountain, some 6,450 feet above sea level in the Chugach Mountain Range.
Here it was, the end of September and it was 60 degrees at my house. This place is awesome.
Eagle River Valley is a special place in the Anchorage Bowl. Carved by glaciers, the valley runs 12 miles out to the Eagle River Nature Center and then another 15 miles along the Eagle River to the Eagle River Glacier. Mountains rise on both sides of the riverbed. Wildlife galore.
And to think that 10,000 years ago this entire valley lay beneath a massive sea of ice, connected to the Eklutna Glacier, Knik Glacier, and Matanuska Glacier with those across the Cook Inlet, like Capps and Triumvirate Glaciers, covering the Anchorage Bowl.
Forty years ago you could set your calendar by the first appearance of Termination Dust that brushed the peaks of the Chugach Mountains in Anchorage.
Every year, in the second half of August, the first signs of snow would appear in Anchorage on the tips Wolverine Peak, usually following a cold rain.
However, I’ve noticed there’s been no August Termination Dust in over a decade. In fact, as I looked out from my deck, there was no sign of snow on Hiland, Baldy, or any mountain peak.
Here it is, almost October and no snow on “them there” mountains. How could this be? The answer is simple and can be found in science. The Earth is warming.
Alas, my good liberal friends will declare, he has finally come over to our side in understanding the perils of climate change. Maybe now we can get him and his ilk to take notice and implement our drastic measures to save the planet. Time is of the essence. We must pass the Green New Deal right now they shriek. Follow the Eco-Messiah Greta Thunberg as she proclaims at the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit, “How Dare You? You are failing us. But young people are starting to understand your betrayal. And if they choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you!”
Such garbage. Grow up kid. You want to follow the science, than here it is.
The Earth is constantly undergoing changes. Changes that impact the global climate include the distance of the Earth to the sun (it is not constant), ocean currents, volcanic activity (guess what, Alaska is directed situated along the volcanic Pacific Rim), and atmosphere (low levels of greenhouse gases can cause the Earth to cool).
Over the course of millions of years, the Earth has experienced at least five major ice ages. The Huronian ice age lasted from about 2400 to 2100 million years ago while the Cryogenian ice age occurred from 850 to 635 million years ago.
We are currently living in an interglacial stage of the Quaternary ice age which started around 2.5 million years ago and is still going.
Guess what? Between these ice ages, the Earth warmed and ice melted, as we are seeing now in this current ice age. Libs, take a breath. I know factual science hurts your heads when it conflicts with your story line.
During the Late Glacial Interstadial period, the sea level was significantly lower than today due to sea ice being frozen in large sheets across the region and human populations were able to migrate from Eurasia (todays Russia) to North America (Alaska) using the dry Beringa land bridge.
The Last Glacial Maximum was the most recent time that ice sheets were at their greatest. Permanent summer ice covered about 8% of Earth’s surface and 25% of the land area. 95% of Alaska was covered with ice. This was 10,000 years ago. It has been warming ever since.
We are told that humans are the main contributor to global warming. Balderdash. Earth’s climate has been warming and cooling for millions of years before the invention of the internal combustion engine and the use of fossil fuels. The fact is, the industrial age has had a minuscule impact on global temperatures changes.
The United States has one of the cleanest environments in the world. We are good custodians of this planet. Proof is in the science. The air and waters of America are substantially cleaner today than they were just 50 years ago and through innovative technology, we are continuing to improve the environment while simultaneously sustaining the most economically successful nation in history.
Regardless of the Left’s rhetoric on global warming, we cannot stop the Earth’s climate from changing. The nonstop screaming at us that we must act now or the Earth will die is actually just another tactic to control us, to force us to give up our wealth, our freedom, and our future.
Don’t let them get away with this destruction of America.
So here I am back on the deck. Still no snow on the mountains. That’s OK by me. Were it not for global warming over the past 10,000 years, the land my house sits on, as well as every other house (your house, too) and structure in Anchorage would still be under deep, deep ice.
The climate is going to continue changing, regardless of human efforts. We cannot stop global warming, or cooling for that matter. Stop believing the false narrative pushed by liberals to generate fear and guilt that if you don’t drive an electric car, don’t use public transportation, fly in an airplane, eat red meat, don’t use only solar and/or wind power, and don’t immediately end the use of fossil fuels you are responsible for killing the planet. That’s pure liberal crap.
Time to flip the steaks on my outdoor charcoal grill before they are overcooked. God, I love living in Alaska.
Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor. He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation. He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).
Exactly. The earth has been changing since the beginning of time and will continue to do so – long after the Looney Liberals are gone!!!!
“The earth has been changing since the beginning of time …”
Complete scientific ignorance and illiteracy. First, the planet did not exist since the beginning of time and in fact, is three times younger than the universe. Second, the Earth has not always had an atmosphere so by extension has not always had a climate. Third plate tectonics through geological history seals your stupidity.
Bravo! Thank you.
Complete and utter gibberish. At best, a flawed analysis of some scientific facts. When this uneducated author comes close to science and correctly states that the Earth is in an ice age he gets the terminology incorrect it is not the Quarternary ice age but rather the Pleistocene ice age. While some effects of climate change will be beneficial in some locations, the evidence from scientific research very clearly shows that the negative effects vastly outweigh any positives. This is the result of the unprecedented rapid rate of warming, not a departure from an “ideal temperature” for our planet. Research unambiguously shows that the net effect of continued climate change this century—factoring in both positives and negatives—is significant harm to humans and the rest of Earth’s ecosystems.
This weak op-ed is riddled with straw men and red herring fallacies is a sure sign the author is scientifically nescient. One such red herring fallacy to suggest climate change is natural and continuous for the current unprecedented warming. That’s akin to implying that deaths in WWII were all-natural because more humans died in the plague. Climate has been studied for more than two centuries and we can demonstrate humans are responsible for all the current warming by using fossil fuels.
The author badly needs to contact the Greta Thunberg helpline (Their slogan is “We understand that a child acting like an adult makes you act like a child”).
Rob. Not to quibble with your irrational tantrum, but factually the Quartenary Ice Age is also known as the Pleistocene Ice Age in science. The names are interchangeable for the current ice age. Appreciate your confirming my column with your factually distorted response. Cheers, man!
Nope, not interchangeable that is a typical error from science conspiracy and denial sites that you obviously frequent with that op-ed of pure gibberish. That’s why you write gross nonsense such as:
“The climate is going to continue changing, regardless of human efforts. We cannot stop global warming, or cooling for that matter. Stop believing the false narrative pushed by liberals to generate fear and guilt that if you don’t drive an electric car, don’t use public transportation, fly in an airplane, eat red meat, don’t use only solar and/or wind power, and don’t immediately end the use of fossil fuels you are responsible for killing the planet.”
Not one climate scientist states the planet is being “killed” – we do know that we are making the biosphere inhospitable to extant life which at best will be extirpated by our pollution in the atmosphere or extinct the most likely outcome. None of the changes are natural forcings. This silly redneck site does not permit links or uploading photos otherwise I’d point you to the data agreed to by 100% of climate scientists who currently research and publish their findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals of authority and standing.
Interesting reply. I assume that you do not see the irony of proving Mr. Campbell’s point that there were indeed ice age periods that were clearly interspersed with significant warming trends many millennia before man’s appearance. You stack about 200 years of “climate research” against millions of years of reality. So call me skeptical. Back in the 70s my high school teacher went into hysterics teaching us that man-made (and ONLY man-made) carbon emissions were creating a cooling effect and she stated that “settled science” knew that by 2000 or no later than 2020 most of Europe, Alaska and Canada will be beneath a sheet of ice and all life as we know it will cease to exist! I was always struck that someone who so fervently believed in evolution was so determined to stop it in it’s tracks.
On another point who decided that this exact climate today is the very best and must be preserved at all cost and for all eternity? The hubris of this thinking is breath taking. Mankind’s adaptability has always been it’s strength!
First of all, there is no proof in science and you have no clue what you are ranting about. Natural climate change occurs over millennia and we know exactly what natural forcings cause them and how they are amplified by atmospheric CO₂. Second, your HS teacher did no such science fiction especially as we know that aerosols and particulate cause cooling. Third, millions of years of reality as you misunderstand geological evidence confirm what we are observing today. Fourth she made no such statement about settled science as in the 1970s science overwhelming determined that adding CO₂ to the atmosphere would cause warming. The cooling nonsense came from the tabloid press. I know that first hand having completed postgraduate science and engineering degrees in the early 70s. One of my specialty subjects was climate and paleoclimate. We also are able to calculate what the surface mean temperature of the planet should be under natural conditions and shows we are in the long slow cooling cycle to the next glaciation period.
What a hoot!
So Rob, were you one of my classmates sitting in the same class, listening to the nonsense my teacher was spouting back then?? I doubt it!
Oh I also have a great story about the Ozone Layer if you are interested…..
“Climate has been studied for more than two centuries and we can demonstrate humans are responsible for all the current warming by using fossil fuels”
Okay, explain Exit glacier. The signs along the approach road show “The glacier toe was here in 1902” and so on. Who was burning fossil fuel in 1902 to melt Exit glacier?
I’ll wait.
Since when did your silly anecdote about one glacier mean anything to do with global means? Try and formulate a scientific posit and not use free speech to show your obnoxious ignorance.
Oh for gosh sakes, Rob, just dry your eyes and pull yourself together. You come across like an angry, butt-hurt child flailing around, hoping that someone will take you seriously but your poor social skills and your endless, caustic bloviating are enough to make an old lady want to spank some sense into you.
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You want to come unhinged over environmental despoliation? Fair enough, then redirect your terrible aim at your Chicom buddies and the third world deuce-holes which aren’t practicing sound resource development policies.
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Decent folks are sneering and snickering in your general direction.
Psychological projection at its most flamboyant and histrionic, laced with outdated and mindless fossil fuel boosterism.
Preposterous posturing from a loony buffoon with too much time on his hands, laced with imbecilic disregard for the unsettled proposition that oil and gas could be abiotic in origin rather than from decaying biomass.
You can hear the liberal heads snapping everywhere. The idiocy that is the narrative from the left, whether it is hiding from a virus to global warming, drives me nuts. You can’t prevent a virus from moving through a population once it is in the population and you can’t change Mother Nature.
Science is apolitical idiot!
Why deny the obvious? The earth’s current warming is far and above all previous warming and will change things that humans currently depend on: the fisheries, the air, our oceans, our forests. I, for one, will miss many species, birds and marine mammals, that won’t survive the change. It has been proven conclusively that humans are responsible. We could do something to mitigate the effects if we weren’t so bullheadedly denying this, but it’s now beyond the point of stopping it. That’s what I understand from listening to scientists. Pity some people still refuse to do so.
At least some laypersons like you have the intellectual capacity to understand what science is telling us. Well done!
I find it interesting that there are a few comments cropping up on MRAK from people who are not strictly right-wing demagogues. Perhaps sanity is making progress against the ideological headwinds.
Of course, some will never be persuaded, no matter the evidence. Facts are debatable, but beliefs are rock solid.
The University of Alaska drilled the layers of coal down in Homer, Alaska. There are 48 layers each representing an Ice Age. Prior to the Ice Age cycle when our solar system was in a tight orbit (1 light year) around the Sirius Binary star system being pulled around Sirius A (3-solar masses 4 e 30) by the little white dwarf Sirius B (1.5 solar masses) the size of earth putting out more than 100 times the light of our sun earth’s global temperature was 63 degrees F.
We got blasted out of our Sirius orbit 2.5 million years ago by the Banard’s Loop explosion and the average global temperature went down to 32 degree F. We made 48 orbits since as indicated by the 48 layers of coal…
Nobody will look outside our solar system for other sources of light and heat but our sun could not have made all the coal, oil and limestone layers up to 12,500-feet thick.
COSMOLOGICAL ICE AGES 383 PAGES 8.5 by 11 about the history of our solar system and how all the coal, oil and limestone were made by light that could not have come from the sun because early earth’s CO2 atmosphere was 750- PSI and 2,800-miles deep. We are still in the Ice Age because we are heading toward Sirius A and Ba at 7.5 kilometers per second and it is 8 LY distant. Our orbit period based on gravity in that direction is 105,000 years. Hence the book title..We used ellipse calculations adding the galaxy gravity and the 3-solar mass, Procyon bringing the total gravity in that direction to 20 times the gravity of our solar system. http://www.hankkroll.com
What? Science based facts about global warming, global cooling, climate change, changing climate? How refreshing!
This is just the same old tired attempt to make this a debate when it is not. People like this author keep coming up with “evidence” for how the earth has gone through these cycles and this is not any different. The reality is the science behind human caused warming takes into account all the cycles the earth has gone through and can see the different variables that exist today. The science has been clear since the 80’s when scientist testified before congress for the first time. Those that profit from the status quo or who are resistant to any kind of change have fought so hard to make this into a false debate. The sad thing is that it is working so well. There is so much doubt for something that should not be be doubted. For years the tobacco industry did the exact same thing. People just could not believe cigarettes could cause cancer and the false debate persisted until it could not longer hold weight. That day will come with human caused warming as well, but this time we can’t just quit smoking and sue the tobacco companies to make it all better. It will be too late to make any substantial change and generations will suffer from the ignorance being propelled from articles like this one.
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