This column has addressed issues of climate change four times in the past 11 years. Let’s do it again, but this time get to the factual heart of it.

We now know there are adequate world deposits of fossil fuels, and scientists know that solar and wind as electricity-generation means are nice but inadequate and too expensive to meet humanity needs. We know that a sizeable part of our population believes, wrought by ignorance, in the blatherings of the female member of Congress from the Bronx and her ilk about global warming, so their views must be discounted. With that said, here are some lesser-known views about what drives climate.

No surprise – the Sun does this for us. Mr. Sun creates what we call sunspots, averaging 10 times the size of Earth and with magnetic fields 10,000 times stronger than Earth’s. Science guys have been tracking all this since 1755 and found that the number of sunspots vary in an 11-year cycle. Earth is just completing solar cycle 24 with sunspot activity falling from a high of over 100 in 2014 to an expected low in 2022.

In mid-2018 the count was much lower than forecast, which could indicate the onset of a cycle called a “Maunder Minimum.” The last one known covered the time period 1645-1715 when 7% fewer sunspots were observed, often with periods of no spots, and global cooling happened big time. NASA now agrees that the atmosphere is losing heat high above Earth’s surface, and this could soon initiate a modern record for cold weather. Regardless that the United Nations has been a major denier of cyclical solar activity while forcing climate change, most folks with any sense will listen to some science analysis instead of political hacks and uninformed people with a vested interest.

Others, such as former NOAA meteorologist David Dilley, believe that 2019 will see the start of a more intense climate factor, and in some areas of the world a new “ice age” is nigh. Dilley’s research shows that this year Earth will enter a natural 120-year-long cooling cycle, which happens roughly every 230 years. During this time, human dependence on agricultural outputs will be the major and devastating issue – not warming and carbon dioxide production.

Remember also that cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many human deaths as hot weather. Another factor to remember in this scenario is that all plants die without carbon dioxide levels above 150 parts per million (that is a reason some greenhouses often spend money to pump CO₂ into the growing areas). If you go back and look, Science News in May 1959 forecast a 25% increase in atmospheric CO₂ in the 150-year period of 1850-2000; it went up 29%. We also know that CO₂ levels during the dinosaur era were five to 10 times the levels of today based on fossil evidence. 

NASA has confirmed that the current solar maximum is about as weak as Earth has seen in over 100 years. This is based on study of SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) data. Another fellow at NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory said, “To have a spotless day during a solar maximum is odd, but then again this solar maximum we are in has been very wimpy.”

Most all of the foregoing facts are offered to you as thoughtful readers and not to sell any social philosophy or ideologic matter as is so often the objective of the political class and media, most of which have no clue about the truths expressed here. I contend that this distinction is quite important and becomes all the more so with passing time. Our country cannot afford the distraction or even the presence of the ideologies constantly espoused by the left. 

It is important for our country, in my view, that those with some facts and common sense as their tools and ammunition go to federal, state and local government and coerce laws and policies that eliminate the effect of ideas about climate change. It costs money to have these matters at public attention. It is a matter of pay now or lose all later. This is just one issue of many that affects the stability of America and its survival.