LITTLE ICE AGES ON EARTH

At the present time, the world is paranoid about climate change. There seems to be a general lack of vision about the history of the world.

There are science programs on TV about the ice ages that never seem to feature in our studies of history.

There was an ice age that ravaged the world for four centuries from the 1300s. It was due to the atmosphere being covered by volcanic ash that blotted out the sun and turned the world to ice.

There was a second ice age about 250 years ago caused by a volcano in Indonesia.

The first ice age may have caused mass migrations of people and mass extinctions of wild life.

We are told that this ice age brought icy conditions in Europe that caused people to stay in doors with the rats that brought the bubonic plague.

It brought depths of ice to Russia that caused the deaths of thousands of French invaders led by Napoleon. It destroyed the crops and led to the broad cultivation of potatoes.

The deaths from the bubonic plague undoubtedly directed the Protestant Reformation when the people were unable to call on God through the priests who were dying of plague too.

The start of the first ice age was very eventful. There was the move of Portuguese and Spanish explorers to the new world. 

We read today that all these explorers were Knights Templar spreading out to the world that they knew was round not flat.

The second ice age must have had a deep impact on the world as we saw up to the 20^th century.

Soldiers of WW1 reported from the trenches of Europe of the deep chill they suffered. Hot coffee turned cold within half a minute.

The second ice age was caused by the massive layer of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere from the sulphur that spewed from the volcano in Indonesia.

The ice ages ceased in the 18 and 19^th centuries. What happened to the sulphur dioxide?

Does the planet have ways to disperse and absorb the gaseous chemicals? Can gases escape to outer space? Are there breaks in the ozone layer?

One major effect of the ice ages was undoubtedly the polar ice caps and glaciers. Is it possible that these are melting only now in this century?

What happened to the animal and plant life during the ice ages? So many animals and plants survived. Was the ice age limited only to the northern hemisphere. Or did it cover the earth?

Were the explorations and settlement of Australia part of the migration from a northern cold?

We read of the many droughts and flooding rains in Australia dating back two centuries.

There are still large burned out trees in the Dandenongs of Victoria from the 1929 fire. Has Australia still been suffering the last ebb and flow of the second ice age? Glaciers in New Zealand are melting.

The world has undergone massive changes in the last millenia. The Sahara Desert used to be a jungle. Antarctic used to have trees.

Is it all about the movements of tectonic plates on which the continents stand?

There are sea shells on Mt Everest and along the ridges of the Markham Valley in Papua New Guinea.

The oil deposits in the Middle East were the remnants of fossilized forests.

We hear that the seas are rising. Oceans have risen and fallen hundreds of metres over millions of years. I live near the sea in Papua New Guinea. The sea level has not risen significantly in 20 years.

So much for Pacific islands being covered by sea water caused by the global warming.

As the ice caps melt, the volume of melted ice below the sea level will be taken up by water.

The tornadoes of the USA are the result in the changes to the temperature of the Gulf Stream that cause warm winds to collide with the Arctic winds across central North America.

Seas will rise and fall as the result of tectonic plate movement. The defensive positions of the Japanese at Buna and Gona have disappeared under the sea since 1942.

The Sepik plains used to be under the sea but have now risen to become flat jungle clad stretches of land.

We have to view the climate change in the context of the history of the changes in climate of the planet.

We hear of carbon dioxide (CO2) that covers the planet. Living creatures breathe out carbon dioxide that is taken in by plants and converted to oxygen by photosynthesis.

But this is all we hear of in the global warming debate. Surely we are talking also about carbon monoxide (CO) that is poisonous and comes out of the exhaust pipes of cars.