This just in:
NORTH POLE — Kris Kringle announced today that he has dropped the centuries-old tradition of stuffing coal into the stockings of naughty boys and girls. The decision comes at a time when record warm temperatures and thinning sea ice are threatening the very existence of Kringle’s North Pole toy-making and distribution center.
“In light of the prominent role of coal burning in global warming, Santa has decided that he can no longer in any way endorse the extraction of coal,” explained Ilbereth, Kringle’s spokes-elf. Poor behavior will not go unpunished, however. “Silicate rocks and organic mulch will be replacing coal in stockings, with the occasional mercury-free rotting sardine and DVD of An Inconvenient Truth for those extraordinarily naughty individuals.”
My last year Christmas present from John was a marvelous piece of writing, (see December 21st, 2006, “Quacks in the Internet Age” ), and a wonderful demonstration of the narrowness in the climate debate. This year theme on 21st Dec.: “SANTA GOES GREEN” seems just to demonstrate that with the not understood early arctic warming (see: http://www.arctic-warming.com ), as well as the ignorance of the dramatic climatic shift during winter 1939/40 is such a case.
Meanwhile we know that the 1930s fairly matched the warmth of recent years. In Europe autumn 1938 was in the top three over a 500 years period. And suddenly, when World War Two commenced, the mild winters for several dozens years disappeared. For Christmas and the New Year, two small climate stories, unbelievable, but true.
Second World War was just 100 days old, the Russian-Finish Winter War mere three weeks, when a cold wave befell Finland around the 24th December about which the New York Times correspondent, James Aldridge, (NYT, 25 December 1939), reported as follows:
“The cold numbs the brain in this Arctic hell, snow sweeps over the darkened wastes, the winds howl and the temperature is 30 degrees below zero (minus 34.4 ° C). Here the Russians and Finns are battling in blinding snowstorms for possession of ice-covered forests. …I reached the spot just after the battle ended. It was the most horrible sight I had ever seen. As if the men had been suddenly turned to wax, there were two or three thousand Russians and a few Finns, all frozen in fighting attitudes. Some were locked together, their bayonets within each other’s bodies; some were frozen in half-standing positions; some were crouching with their arms crooked, holding the hand grenades they were throwing; some were lying with their rifles shouldered, their legs apart…. Their fear was registered on the frozen faces. Their bodies were like statues of men throwing all their muscles and strength into some work, but their faces recorded something between bewilderment and horror.”
By mid February 1940, Northern Europe was totally unexpectedly in the coldest winter for 100 years, The New York Times reported on 16 February 1940, that Adolf Hitler’s Deputy, Field Marshal Herman Goering, said in a public speech one day earlier:
“Nature is still more powerful than man.
I can fight man but I cannot fight nature
when I lack the means to carry out such battle.
We did not ask for ice, snow and cold –
A higher power sent it to us.”
The war criminal Goering erred in most things, also on 15. February 1940. Who if not the few month old war brought the Little Ice Age suddenly back to Europe? CO2 didn’t do it! More on: http://www.warchangesclimate.com . Lets hope that such events are reasonably explained soon. To John, thanks a lot for ‘Quacks in the Internet Age’; I will try to quack better and louder.