[Each month, Heartland Institute Science Director Jay Lehr will present evidence that mankind has no significant impact on the Earth’s climate.]
Temperatures have fluctuated over the past 8,000 years, and current temperatures are below the average for the past 8,000 years.
A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would benefit humans and ecosystems. During the Medieval Warm Period, from roughly 800 to 1200 AD, temperatures were warmer than today, allowing great prosperity for mankind. Greenland was actually green back then.
Temperature fluctuations during the current 300-year recovery from the Little Ice Age, which bottomed out around 1700 AD, correlate almost perfectly with fluctuations in solar activity. This temperature recovery long predates human use of significant amounts of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas.
