We are Heroes

"New Study: Climate Change Has Stopped an Emerging Ice Age" — Der Standard

"Human-Caused Global Warming May Have Prevented a New Ice Age, New Research Suggests" — Frankfurter Rundschau

Wait, what?

So now climate change is suddenly a good thing, because otherwise we'd all be fucking freezing to death?!

From the opening paragraph of Frankfurter Rundschau:

"The increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activities has interrupted the natural onset of a new ice age on Earth. As the US technology magazine Wired reported, a scientific investigation of Canada's Barnes Ice Cap shows that centuries of ice growth were halted in the 20th century by the rapid increase in carbon pollution."

Right. And... is that supposed to be good or bad? The rest of the article doesn't really answer that question.

Here's how Der Standard opens its report:

"Anyone waiting for the next ice age may already have missed it. According to researchers led by Nicolás Young, it began roughly 2,000 years ago and came to a halt again in the 20th century, stopped by human-caused global warming. 'It had just started, everything was proceeding normally, the next glaciation was about to begin, and yet it stopped,' says the geochemist from Columbia University in New York. To him, this is a striking example of just how profoundly humanity has shaken up the climate system."

Shaken up, huh? Ha ha.

But is that good or bad?

The article continues:

"When we speak of an ice age here, the term is being used largely in its everyday sense. Strictly speaking, we are already living in an ice age — the Late Cenozoic Ice Age, which began roughly 34 million years ago. Within this larger ice age, glacial and interglacial periods alternate. What people ordinarily call an ice age is usually a glacial period. The most recent one ended about 11,700 years ago, and we've been in an interglacial warm period ever since. That, too, is merely one phase within the larger ice age."

So... we're living in an ice age AND a warm period at the same time?

The rest of the article is a tangled mess of word salad that seems to be trying to tell us something along the lines of:

"Everything is fucked, we're screwed, but at least it won't be getting quite so cold anytime soon."

And what does Germany's onetime self-proclaimed "assault gun of democracy," Der Spiegel — or Der LIEgel, as I affectionately call it — have to say about all this?

Headline:

"An Ice Age Was Imminent, According to Researchers — Then Human-Caused Climate Change Intervened."

"An analysis of North America's largest ice sheet suggests that human-caused climate change is now overriding the natural dynamics of Earth's climate."

Okay, but surely that can't be a good thing. Can it?

Further down:

"At the peak of the last ice age, around 20,000 years ago, the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered almost one-third of North America, including most of present-day Canada. The once miles-thick ice sheet subsequently shrank, reaching its minimum extent around 3,600 years ago, according to a predominantly American research team writing in the journal Science."

Fair enough. Nobody wants one-third of North America buried under a gigantic sheet of ice today.

Except, perhaps, everyone who lives outside North America.

About 2,000 years ago, this ice sheet apparently began preparing to do humanity that little favor, but its ambitions were thwarted around 1960. By 2022, the ice margin had retreated by another 200 to 800 meters, something the researchers attribute primarily to significantly higher summer temperatures.

The report continues:

"This illustrates the consequences of global warming caused by greenhouse gases emitted by humans. 'The next ice age was just around the corner — and yet it never came,' geochemist Young is quoted as saying in a statement from his university. 'It's a striking example of how we've disrupted the system.'"

Right.

So which is it? Good or bad?

"'As atmospheric CO₂ concentrations continue to rise, a return to glacial conditions is extremely unlikely,' the research team emphasizes."

Aha.

No ice age for the foreseeable future.

So everything's fine, then?

Probably not.

Almost certainly not.

But it certainly is remarkable how headlines proclaiming that humanity has prevented an ice age have suddenly appeared all over the media.

What's going on here?

Maybe it's an elaborate trick to lure the climate skeptics into a trap.

They read the headline "Humanity Prevents Ice Age" and immediately trumpet:

"AHA!!! SEE?! I SAVED THE WORLD WITH MY HOUSE-SIZED SUV AND MY ENORMOUS CARBON FOOTPRINT! NOW I'M GOING TO BUY A GM HUMMER SO I CAN SAVE THE WORLD EVEN HARDER!"

And then somebody quietly asks:

"Oh, so human-caused climate change DOES exist after all?"

Now there's a thought.

Let's see what ChatGPT makes of it.

ChatGPT:

Hold my masala chai for 38 seconds.

---

THE ICE AGE TRAP

How to Drive Climate Skeptics Insane with Good News

There are days when you get the distinct impression that the universe does, after all, have a sense of humor.

A pretty dark one, admittedly.

For decades, scientists, politicians, and journalists have tried to convince humanity that burning fossil fuels changes the climate.

To no avail.

At least not among that particular segment of the population that would rather watch a retired engineer on YouTube explain why 99 percent of climate science is complete bullshit.

But now, at long last, the Gordian knot may have been cut.

With a single headline:

"Human-Caused Global Warming May Have Prevented a New Ice Age."

Let that sink in.

Humanity has prevented an ice age!

Not some random grassroots organization. Not a bunch of self-appointed climate activists armed with superglue and high school diplomas.

No.

All of us.

Together.

With coal-fired power plants, air travel, cruise ships, SUVs, and an unshakable faith in the healing powers of the internal combustion engine.

As it turns out, we saved the world by destroying it.

The Climate Savior With 600 Horsepower

One can easily imagine the celebrations in certain circles.

Finally! Scientific proof!

They were right all along!

Not those hysterical doomsday prophets with their heat pumps and cargo bikes, but the respectable German middle class, driving around in three-ton SUVs and firmly convinced that there's no replacement for displacement.

Except more displacement.

The gentleman who has spent every Friday deliberately idling his V8 outside the local Fridays for Future rally may now consider himself a pioneer of planetary disaster prevention.

The children should be grateful.

Where would they be today without his personal CO₂ emissions?

Probably knee-deep in permafrost.

And the GM Hummer?

No longer a monstrous symbol of an automotive civilization in the terminal stages of intellectual decline, but a rolling climate protection program.

The classic gas-guzzling Hummer, of course.

The electric version would be a regrettable step backward in this regard.

Perhaps fossil fuels should receive government subsidies from now on.

Every gallon of gasoline a blow against the ice age!

Every flight a victory over the glaciers!

Every cruise ship a floating icebreaker of freedom!

Burn, baby, burn! Save the planet!

And Then Comes the Trick Question

But right in the middle of this collective victory celebration, an innocent little question suddenly appears.

One of those questions that look so harmless you barely notice them before they sweep your argumentative legs out from under you.

"Hold on a second. So you're saying that human CO₂ emissions have actually changed the global climate?"

"Of course! We prevented an ice age! It's all over the news! Even DER SPIEGEL says so!"

"So you acknowledge that human activities can influence global average temperatures?"

"Obviously! How else could we have prevented the ice age?"

"And that greenhouse gas emissions play a decisive role?"

"Exactly! And that's why I'm buying myself a Hummer!"

"Interesting. Just last week you were insisting that human beings couldn't possibly influence the climate at all."

Silence.

The faint clink of a coffee cup.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks.

A diesel engine rattles away at idle.

Then something begins stirring behind those foreheads.

Not much.

But it's a start.

Schrödinger's Climate Change

And here we arrive at the real problem.

Human-caused climate change apparently exists only when it accomplishes something good.

If the planet gets too hot, it's natural cycles, solar activity, volcanoes, or the mysterious machinations of a globalist weather-control mafia.

But if an ice age is prevented, it's obviously the magnificent achievement of Homo sapiens, who, armed with coal-fired power plants and interstate highways, has successfully outsmarted Mother Nature.

Schrödinger's Climate Change: simultaneously man-made and not man-made. Its true state is determined only when you find out whether the result happens to suit your political preferences.

Of course, this principle is by no means confined to climate skeptics.

It's one of the remarkably universal features of the human mind: rather than reconciling contradictory beliefs, we simply store them in separate drawers.

As long as you don't open both drawers at the same time, the system works beautifully.

And if someone does open them both, there's always the option of calling that person a woke, tree-hugging, climate-hysterical establishment stooge.

Problem solved.

The Most Diabolical Trap of All Time?

Perhaps the entire affair really is an elaborate psychological operation.

Perhaps, somewhere in a windowless conference room, a group of scientists, communications consultants, and newspaper editors sat down to prepare the final devastating blow against organized climate skepticism.

"Gentlemen, we've tried everything. Temperature records, satellite data, ice cores, climate models. They simply refuse to believe us."

"What do you suggest?"

"We tell them they're right."

"But they're NOT right!"

"Exactly. We tell them that their cars have prevented an ice age."

"Brilliant! Then they'll have to admit that human beings can change the climate!"

"And once they admit it?"

"We've got them!"

A diabolical plan of almost breathtaking simplicity.

All you have to do is tell your opponent that his greatest environmental sin was actually an act of heroism, and suddenly he voluntarily embraces the very scientific principles he's spent decades fighting.

This isn't framing anymore.

This is intellectual judo.

You use your opponent's own momentum to throw him onto the mat with the full weight of his own worldview.

Unfortunately, There's One Tiny Problem

The trap only works under one condition.

The victim would have to remember what he said yesterday and feel some obligation to reconcile it with what he's saying today.

An almost touchingly optimistic assumption.

Because anyone who has successfully immunized his worldview against scientific evidence for decades is hardly going to be defeated by one little logical inconsistency.

He'll probably just believe both things.

That human beings do not change the climate.

And that by changing the climate, they saved the world.

At the same time.

Without experiencing so much as a fleeting moment of embarrassment.

After all, evolution didn't give human beings a brain so they could recognize the truth.

It gave them a brain so they could come up with convincing explanations for why they were right all along.

---

Perhaps we are witnessing the greatest triumph in the history of climate science:

At long last, even the climate skeptics believe in human-caused climate change.

All it took was telling them that it was a good thing.

And if that really was the plan, you've got to hand it to whoever came up with it.

They didn't fight stupidity.

They figured out how to turn it into a renewable energy source.