Global Warming ..... in 1922!

Inside the Beltway
John McCaslin
August 14, 2007

Library of Congress Marcus Aurelius' remark that "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane" was quoted by a British scientist skeptical of global-warming nostrums.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before Gore

D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: "Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt."

The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention "great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones," and "at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared."

"This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s," says Mr. Lockwood. "I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all."

Worth pondering

Reacting yesterday to word that certain European governments and officials are suddenly trying to abandon their costly "global warming" policies, Royal Astronomical Society fellow Benny Peiser, of the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University in Great Britain, recalls the teachings of Marcus Aurelius: "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

But they didn't have SUVs, hairspray, air conditioning or jet engines in 1922. There must be some kind of mistake.