This allows a little less latitude for the gang with enough arrogance to actually think they can make a significant dent in how this planet's ecosystem functions.
Climate change in planet Terra's ecosystem has been going on since this sphere has cooled enough for life to take root. There are well-recorded periods of climate change within the era of human occupation. It may safely be assumed that changes will go on into the period of human infestation, human decimation and whatever else is going to happen to this species that is being accused of behaving much like a microbial infection on the face of this planet.
Terra's ecosystem changes occur for reasons only partly understood by human climatologists and not at all by the sensation-mongering global warming cheerleaders. Climate changes have been going on for millions of years before Al Gore or David Suzuki and no doubt will go on for millions of years more.
I personally witnessed one period of climate change that started when I was too little to begin classes at the nearest country school because it was 4 miles distant and we had to walk. This was during the Dirty-Thirties, a decade made infamous not only because of the US stock market crash and the poverty that followed as credit was withdrawn, but also because the rains failed. The topsoil in the central states and the prairie provinces threatened to dry up and blow away on the powerful west winds.
The memories that still reel through my mind include sand dunes piling up like snow drifts in the lee of fence lines on the eastern slope of the Assiniboine watershed above the Elbow. I recall following on my hands and knees tiny tracks up and over the pristine sand dunes, expecting to find a fat, brown June bug to play with at the end of each track.
June bugs are the adult stage of the white inch-long grubs that munch on the roots of city lawns and farm grain fields. This leaves bare patches where lush grass used to be.
Shaped like shiny little brown Volkswagen Beetles, these bugs were hefty enough to serve as slingshot missiles and felt cool to the touch as they nestled in the palm of a five-year-old's hand. They were fun to play with and the brown bats came out at dusk to gorge on them as they took flight.
Shaped like shiny little brown Volkswagen Beetles, these bugs were hefty enough to serve as slingshot missiles and felt cool to the touch as they nestled in the palm of a five-year-old's hand. They were fun to play with and the brown bats came out at dusk to gorge on them as they took flight.
Just as the emergence of earthworms at the spring thaw feeds the first hatch of robins, no doubt the emergence of these adult June bugs makes possible a generation of well fed little baby bats.
While bald patches in a well-trimmed city lawn are an eyesore and an inconvenience, they represent a crop failure to the farmers. Also, a bare patch in the wheat field left no protective cover. This allowed the west winds to suck out bathtub-sized holes in the prairie landscape. Some of these holes were more than two feet deep, aerodynamically sculpted with pebbles, rocks and anything else too heavy for the wind to suck up and blow away sitting in the lowest part of the hole.
Among these objects were flint stone arrow heads, granite hammers and other objects that once belonged to the aborigines. I even had in my collection of debris a soap stone peace pipe and an old hunting knife with a staghorn handle that we assumed had once belonged to one of the early fur traders because the blade was metal. It was more evidence that the remains of Ft. Pelly, Ft. Hibernia, and Ft. Livingstone, which served briefly as the seat of the Territorial government, were nearby.
Every farm family in the community had in its possession a collection of stone artifacts including hammers, axes, knives, spear points and other objects that were unearthed by the prevailing winds or turned up by plowshares in the fields.
A memorable occasion for me occurred a few years later when I was walking with my father among the dunes in the sandy Pretty View area north of Verigin, SK. We came upon a freshly wind-swept clearing with an interesting layout. There was a clear patch of hard clay about as wide as the diameter of a human posterior, surrounded by flint stone chips in a pattern that suggested an aboriginal worksite. Here, some stone age craftsman was once seated cross-legged, shaping flint tools one chip at a time.
We stood there, keenly aware we were in touch with activity that might have occurred a thousand years or more earlier before being sifted over by the west wind and kept secret for us to view in the future. Nestled among sparse poplar saplings and ground juniper, it is possible that the site was drifted over again by swirling air currents after we left, for someone else to discover in a hundred or a thousand years.
The early settlers, including my family, assumed that before the coming of the white man, the inhabitants of the area were stone-age people. The evidence was everywhere.
While bald patches in a well-trimmed city lawn are an eyesore and an inconvenience, they represent a crop failure to the farmers. Also, a bare patch in the wheat field left no protective cover. This allowed the west winds to suck out bathtub-sized holes in the prairie landscape. Some of these holes were more than two feet deep, aerodynamically sculpted with pebbles, rocks and anything else too heavy for the wind to suck up and blow away sitting in the lowest part of the hole.
Among these objects were flint stone arrow heads, granite hammers and other objects that once belonged to the aborigines. I even had in my collection of debris a soap stone peace pipe and an old hunting knife with a staghorn handle that we assumed had once belonged to one of the early fur traders because the blade was metal. It was more evidence that the remains of Ft. Pelly, Ft. Hibernia, and Ft. Livingstone, which served briefly as the seat of the Territorial government, were nearby.
Every farm family in the community had in its possession a collection of stone artifacts including hammers, axes, knives, spear points and other objects that were unearthed by the prevailing winds or turned up by plowshares in the fields.
A memorable occasion for me occurred a few years later when I was walking with my father among the dunes in the sandy Pretty View area north of Verigin, SK. We came upon a freshly wind-swept clearing with an interesting layout. There was a clear patch of hard clay about as wide as the diameter of a human posterior, surrounded by flint stone chips in a pattern that suggested an aboriginal worksite. Here, some stone age craftsman was once seated cross-legged, shaping flint tools one chip at a time.
We stood there, keenly aware we were in touch with activity that might have occurred a thousand years or more earlier before being sifted over by the west wind and kept secret for us to view in the future. Nestled among sparse poplar saplings and ground juniper, it is possible that the site was drifted over again by swirling air currents after we left, for someone else to discover in a hundred or a thousand years.
The early settlers, including my family, assumed that before the coming of the white man, the inhabitants of the area were stone-age people. The evidence was everywhere.
That the prairie soil threatened to dry up and blow away during the thirties is well documented not only in history, but also in literature and film. There are some excellent documentaries showing the devastation of farm land that had been broken and stripped of cover, tilled with little regard for sustaining healthy topsoil.
Clearly, there was something there that needed to be learned by the farming industry. And it was. The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was enacted and farmers no longer took the sustainability of their land for granted.
Clearly, there was something there that needed to be learned by the farming industry. And it was. The Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration was enacted and farmers no longer took the sustainability of their land for granted.
What the casual observer witnessed, was the somewhat abrupt conversion of farmland that had been productive for a hundred years to sterile desert.
Was this climate change? Of course. But as it turned out, it was temporary.
As the '30s morphed into the '40s the rains once again grew more frequent. By the '50s, parts of the central states and Canadian prairies threatened to once again become an inland sea.
Was this climate change? Of course. But as it turned out, it was temporary.
As the '30s morphed into the '40s the rains once again grew more frequent. By the '50s, parts of the central states and Canadian prairies threatened to once again become an inland sea.
I recall pulling metre-long pike out of a pond in the middle of a farmyard. Shallow lakes overflowed their banks and new lakes grew where cow pasture had been only a couple of years earlier.
This kind of off-and-on regional climate change has been going on for millions of years before with no one panicking over it. The indigenous hunter/gatherers simply accepted what was happening and adjusted their diets from deer and buffalo to Northern Pike and Walleye. Others simply packed up their tents and went looking for happier hunting grounds.
They had no cell phones nor incredible new apps to spread panic with. There was no Al Gore to write alarming books about it and no David Suzuki to tell us that the sky was falling and that it may already be too late to do anything about it.
They had no cell phones nor incredible new apps to spread panic with. There was no Al Gore to write alarming books about it and no David Suzuki to tell us that the sky was falling and that it may already be too late to do anything about it.
It would be interesting to imagine what today's global warming alarmists would have done in the Dirty '30s. It's easy to envision pro active kids from the chaotic end of our social spectrum trying to provoke vote-hungry politicians into importing camels from the Sahara.
That, by the way, actually happened during a particularly dry period of climate change in Australia. Wild camels are now seen wandering around aimlessly in that country according to local lore.
It is almost certain there would be politicians working to enact all kinds of other dumb activity such as the carbon trading fiasco that so far has failed to result in any significant changes other than increased taxes wherever it's been tried.
That, by the way, actually happened during a particularly dry period of climate change in Australia. Wild camels are now seen wandering around aimlessly in that country according to local lore.
It is almost certain there would be politicians working to enact all kinds of other dumb activity such as the carbon trading fiasco that so far has failed to result in any significant changes other than increased taxes wherever it's been tried.
