Global warming means the Sahara will expand, right? And that makes it a crisis, right? Wrong on both counts, says leading geologist Dr. Stefan Kropelin of the University of Cologne. Via No Tricks Zone we learn of a German-language interview with the renowned expert on the Sahara who says the desert grew during cold intervals and was massive during the last ice age. When the glaciers began to retreat, the Sahara began to green up. And if the climate models are true (which he doesn't believe), up to a third of the desert could green up and become livable in the future. He even dares to point out that that outcome would benefit people in the region.
In a way this finding is not a huge surprise because we know that the Sahara was lush during the Holocene climatic optimum, home to giraffes, crocodiles and hippos. And the latter name, remember, means “water horse”. As late as the Roman Warm Period north Africa was the breadbasket of the Empire. But given prevailing dogma, all effects of warming are bad, turning wet regions into swamps and dry ones into deserts.
Dr. Kropelin does not agree with prevailing dogma. On the contrary, warming to his theme, he adds “I would say that today’s handling of climate change is hysterical” and “we should not be dramatizing...” [by only looking at the last few decades] “We can naturally create panic. But I find it totally exaggerated.”
Is the man nuts? Doesn't he know that he will wreck his career saying these things? It would be hard since he is recognized around the world as one of the top Sahara scientists of our time. But it also helps that he is 67 years old and close enough to retirement that he can actually speak his mind.
Which he seems to be prepared to do. “The real catastrophe would be a dramatic drop in global temperature” he says, adding “warming is the least of our problems... Climate change is totally exaggerated.”
Two comments on NoTricksZone I will mention 1. A scientist. How refreshing. 2. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hopefully that will inspire enough of those affected by this madness to stop voting for incompetent Socialists.
Unfortunate, this second comment fell on deaf ears in Canada (except Alberta and Saskatchewan).