Welcome to the new Ice Age

February 25, 2008 11:36 AM by Walter Block

According to the National Post today:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

Read more.

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The "Trouble" with Guido's Book

September 5, 2007 11:59 AM by Walter Block

I agree entirely with Ralph.

The only "trouble" with Guido's book is that, as long as it is, it should have been twice as long. I very greatly regretted finishing reading it. I wanted more. Happily, Guido is a very young man, and we can expect more great things from him in future.

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Why Be An Economist? To Be Happy, That's Why

December 20, 2006 6:10 PM by Walter Block

Murray Rothbard at his typewriter in the 1960s

I have of late become embroiled with a colleague and friend of mine who shall remain nameless in order to protect the guilty.

My advice to my very best students, the ones who are bright and, more important, have been really bitten by the Austro-libertarian bug thanks to both our efforts and those of our several other colleagues, is to major in economics, and either double-major in economics and mathematics or minor in the latter and then go off and get a Ph.D. in economics.

In contrast, my colleague's advice to our students is to major in economics, either double-major in economics and finance or minor in the latter, and then go off and get a really high paying job on Wall Street or some such.

What is my thinking on this matter? Why do I give this advice?

FULL ARTICLE

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