By Lewis Loflin
Hey folks, Lewis Loflin here. I’ve been digging into climate change for a while, and I’m not here to yell or point fingers—just to chat about what we know and what we don’t. History’s full of wild climate swings, like the warm spell that helped spread civilization 7,000 years ago during the Hypsithermal, or the cold snap that tanked the Vikings in Greenland. The Byzantine Romans dealt with droughts, Roanoke’s settlers might’ve been sunk by one too, and whale fossils even hint at an ice-free Northwest Passage way back when. Point is, the planet’s been through a lot, and it’s not all about us humans. CO2’s part of the picture—sure, I believe it’s a factor—but how much? That’s the million-dollar question we haven’t nailed down yet. So, let’s take a step back, look at some solid data—like atoll islands growing, not shrinking—and skip the doomsday hype for a minute. What’s the real story? That’s what I’m after.
Global-scale changes in the area of atoll islands during the 21st century
Ref. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2021.100282, Anthropocene Volume 33, March 2021, 100282
Abstract from the study:
The long-term persistence of atoll islands is under threat due to continued sea level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change. ... Using rich collections of Landsat imagery, this study analyses changes in land area on 221 atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Results show that, between 2000 and 2017, the total land area on these atolls has increased by 61.74 km² (6.1 %) from 1007.60 km² to 1069.35 km². ...the Maldives have added 37.50 km² of land area, while 16.57 km² of new islands have appeared within the South China Seas Spratly and Paracel chains...
The study further notes:
"Despite concerns of erosion driven by sea level rise, no published evidence exists of pervasive erosion of atoll islands at a global scale. Existing studies of atoll island change have been based on small, temporally sparse samples of islands on a limited number of atolls. As a result, the global response of atoll islands coincident with sea level rise remains uncertain."
According to NOAA, U.S. precipitation from 1910 to 2017 has increased. Historical data shows the 1930s droughts, known as the Dust Bowl, were the most severe in America, with the 1950s also experiencing significant drought conditions.
NOAA data indicates that higher temperatures can lead to increased precipitation. To quote:
"How is that (rain) tied to warming? The same way: a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor and an atmosphere with more water vapor can make more precipitation. And the warmer it gets, the higher the theoretical 'Big Rain' events can get. That's playing out in the data, pretty much any way you look at it.
These two trends - wetter conditions overall, and bigger Big Rain... And that brings us back to hurricanes and tropical storms, or 'tropical cyclones' for short. We've long known that generally speaking, warmer means more intense storms and more potential rainfall, but the latest piece of knowledge on tropical cyclones is that they appear to be slowing down, for reasons that aren't entirely clear."
In his 1989 book The End of Nature, Bill McKibben quotes S. Fred Singer, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, on page 30:
"For example, as oceans warm and more water vapor enters the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect will increase somewhat, but so should cloudiness—which keep our incoming solar radiation and thereby reduce the warming."
On the same page, McKibben cites NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen:
"The computer models have tried to incorporate such factors. In some cases, Hansen admits we simply don't have enough knowledge to do more than make educated guesses - for the behavior of the oceans is something of a wild card, and so are the clouds (the difficulty of estimating cloud feedback is a major reason that most warming projections expressed as a range of temperatures and not a single, firm number)."
Global temperature has risen approximately 2°F since 1800, according to historical climate records. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the U.S. population to reach 341,145,670 on January 1, 2025, while the world population is estimated at 8,092,034,511 on the same date.
The Population Bomb (1968) by Paul R. Ehrlich predicted that "in the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death" due to overpopulation. These mass starvations did not occur as predicted.
In 1980, Ehrlich made a wager with Julian Lincoln Simon, author of The Ultimate Resource, over the price of five metals during the 1980s. Ehrlich predicted prices would rise due to scarcity, while Simon argued they would fall, as they had historically. Simon won the bet, as the prices of the selected metals decreased.
Ehrlich’s predictions in The Population Bomb included: "[t]he battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death," and in The End of Affluence, "One general prediction can be made with confidence: the cost of feeding yourself and your family will continue to increase." He also forecasted U.S. life expectancy dropping to 42 years by 1980 due to pesticide use and the population falling to 22.6 million by 1999. In contrast, the U.S. population reached 341,145,670 by January 1, 2025, with life expectancy around 77 years in recent decades.
Ronald Bailey, in his 1993 book Eco-Scam, criticized Ehrlich’s predictions, as did Bjorn Lomborg in The Skeptical Environmentalist. Lomborg argued that economic factors, such as property rights, influence famine more than population density, citing examples like South Korea and North Korea.
Lester Russell Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute and Earth Policy Institute, has written over twenty books on environmental issues, including Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. He holds no formal science credentials but has received numerous honorary degrees and awards, including being named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association in 1991.
Acknowledgment: I’d like to thank Grok, an AI by xAI, for helping me draft and refine this article. The final edits and perspective are my own.
