A UK Telegraph columnist reports,

… the latest US satellite figures [show] temperatures having fallen since 1998, declining in 2007 to a 1983 level - not to mention the newly revised figures for US surface temperatures showing that the 1930s had four of the 10 warmest years of the past century, with the hottest year of all being not 1998, as was previously claimed, but 1934.

How long until we will be advised that the fight against global warming has succeeded in turning the dire situation around?

Not until there’s no more big money to be made or given in being alarmist.

I am reminded of the Candid Camera put-on when Peter Funt and crew set up a booth outside a big supermarket with a banner that said, “Save the Grand Canyon! Donate Here!” They studiously avoided explaining to people just what the Grand Canyon needed saving from, but told people who asked that they could help save it by putting money into the big, glass jar on the table.

Peter Funt

They collected a large sum of money during the day. The skit ended with Funt talking to someone about donating when Funt’s cell phone rang, right on schedule. Funt answered it, said,”Okay thanks, that’s great!” and hung up. Then he started taking down all the displays and the banner.

“What are you doing?” the other man demanded.

“Going home,” answered Funt. “They saved it.”

“Saved what?” said the man.

“The Grand Canyon,” said Funt. “They saved it. Well, bye.”

Back in the real world, environmental scientist Prof. Bob Carter writes:

[T]he accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth’s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades.

And that really is bad news. “Global cooling” has happened before; climatologists call it the “Little Ice Age.”

Western Europe experienced a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850 that brought dire consequences to its peoples. The colder weather impacted agriculture, health, economics, social strife, emigration, and even art and literature. Increased glaciation and storms also had a devastating affect on those that lived near glaciers and the sea. …

The cooler climate during the LIA had a huge impact on the health of Europeans. As mentioned earlier, dearth and famine killed millions and poor nutrition decreased the stature of the Vikings in Greenland and Iceland.

Cool, wet summers led to outbreaks of an illness called St. Anthony’s Fire. Whole villages would suffer convulsions, hallucinations, gangrenous rotting of the extremities, and even death. Grain, if stored in cool, damp conditions, may develop a fungus known as ergot blight and also may ferment just enough to produce a drug similar to LSD. (In fact, some historians claim that the Salem, Massachusetts witch hysteria was the result of ergot blight.)

Malnutrition led to a weakened immunity to a variety of illnesses. In England, malnutrition aggravated an influenza epidemic of 1557-8 in which whole families died. In fact, during most of the 1550’s deaths outnumbered births (Lamb, 1995.) The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) was hastened by malnutrition all over Europe.

One might not expect a typically tropical disease such as malaria to be found during the LIA, but Reiter (2000) has shown that it was an important cause of illness and death in several parts of England. …

I’m not willing to trade one kind of alarmism for another, but it’s interesting to compare the reports of the effects of the Little Ice Age with those of the Medieval Warm Period.