The early Post-Glacial succession is thus linked with a gradual soil maturation. (Iverson, 1964, p. 59)
Iversen explained that:
Only successions that are irreversible under the prevailing climatic conditions, and which lead to ecosystems with permanently-reduced organic productivity, are regarded as true retrogressive successions. It should also be stressed that the concept of forest in this paper actually means the whole ecosystem, including the humus layer, in which the breakdown of the plant debris from the forest takes place. (p. 59)
Two types of retrogressive vegetational succession are next distinguished: one caused by local rise of the ground water table, the other “is connected with the leaching of the soil.”
This type, of course, “occurs more widely.” (p. 59)
Iversen says that although the chemical-physical-biological aspects of the soil changes have been studied intensively by soil scientists, the actual undisturbed course of the retrogression— and what point in the interglacial it begins—are less well known.
Yet Iversen is here able to define this point as being, “When the yearly disintegration of the plant debris no longer keeps pace with the fresh supply from the living plants, and, consequently, a layer of mor (raw humus) is accumulated on top of the mineral soil.” (p. 59) Soil Deterioration Begins
Then five years later, in a paper styled “Retrogressive Development of a Forest Ecosystem Demonstrated by Pollen Diagrams from Fossil Mor,” Iversen presents his discovery that this change from the “mull” humus (characterized by richness of available minerals, including bases—Kubiena, 1953, 1970) to the mor (acidifying humus) state is,
“Marked by the accumulation of pollen grains which, due to the disappearance of earthworms, were no longer mixed into the mineral soil. The date of this change varied depending on soil conditions, the greatest age found so far is 6,300 C-l4 (carbon-14) years B.P.” (Iversen, 1969). Earlier (Iversen, 1960) he noted that such pollen must be laid down “at a time when soil deterioration had already produced very low pH values, otherwise the pollen grains would have disappeared as a result of bacterial activity.” (p. 13) P . 6 1
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Therefore we can see that from the 10,000 to 10,800 years B.P. (before present) date commonly accepted as the opening of the present interglacial, it took about 3,700 to 4,500
years for the first of the glacially-deposited raw mineral soils of basic or alkaline pH, to
“mature” and then go into a gradual “irreversible” degradation. This process Iversen shows to be characterized by soil organism reductions and complete die-outs (the earthworms, e.g.), and by a vegetation retrogression necessarily accompanying the soil degradation.
Sixty-three Centuries Later
What has happened to the Earth’s soil(s) and forests in the 6,312 years since Iversen’s oldest pollen samples were deposited? The answer comes in part by his description of the Denmark forest ecosystems which he labored in.
The Draved forest area is described as an extremely nutrient-poor, strongly acidic and swampy “moorland” of raised bogs which have transgressed over wide areas of former pine forests, then eventually overtook dying-out oak (Iversen, 1964, p. 60) and once-rich elm-oak-alder-pine forests (p. 69). Though the area receives only 750 mm (30 inches) of precipitation annually, the demineralized acidic soils, no longer hospitable to earthworms and microorganisms, form drainage-inhibiting hardpans and thick acid-humus layers. Again, this easily leads to death and swamping of the forests; as in Sweden, Germany, the British Isles, and elsewhere (p. 69).
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Fig. 3.2 Summary of the glacial/interglacial cycle (after IVERSEN 1958).
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The soils not yet swamped have reached the “podzol” (or “podsol”) stage of degeneration, podzolization being simply a form of demineralization. Vast areas of present or former forest lands in Eurasia (Vilenskii, 1957), Western Europe (Kubiena, 1953, 1970), Canada (Legget, 1960), the United States (Marbut, 1935, 1928; USDA, 1975), etc., are considered podzolized.
This stage of extensively podzolized (demineralized) soils—the apparent pre-condition for a new glacial soil rejuvenation period—and the broad processes leading to it, are lucidly described by Iversen in The Development of Denmark’s Nature Since the Last Glacial.
Starting at the stage where temperate zone soils had developed the fertility to support vast deciduous and mixed forests, when the normal soil was mineral-rich mull, “the most favorable of all the soil types,” Iversen depicts the changes: Mull changes in character as the millennia pass; the change is extremely slow in clay soil but faster in poor sandy soil. First the lime is leached out and the mull becomes acid. Moderately acid mull can also be very fertile, but if it becomes too acid the earthworms and the bacterial flora can no longer thrive; the soil begins to deteriorate. The rich mull changes to a poor mull. The larger earthworms, which constantly pull organic matter deep into the soil and deposit their casts on the surface, thus turning the earth over every few years, are the first to disappear. The smaller earthworms, which turn over a shallow layer, follow after them, and so only the smallest earthworms, which stay near the surface, are left. At about this stage, the bacteria which attack the pollen exines also seem to disappear, and pollen then accumulates together with humus on the soil surface. A critical threshold has thus been passed: mull has become mor. . . In pronounced mor the breakdown of organic matter is mainly carried out by fungi. (It may be noted here that soil scientists, botanists and foresters have found that most present-day forest trees and many other plants, in both temperate and tropical zones, receive their soil nutrients directly from the soil fungi, as in the well-known “mycorrhizal association,” e.g. Marks and Kozlowski, 1973; Sanders et al, 1975).
The mor layer causes the downwardly percolating water to become very acid, and thus the iron in the upper soil layers is dissolved and is re-precipitated lower down together with dissolved humus, forming a hard-pan. This can be rock-hard and nearly impenetrable both for water and for plant roots, since the mineral particles are glued together by humus or by iron salts. . . The combination of mor, hardpan, and the intervening ash-colored leached sand, extremely poor in nutrients, makes up a podsol profile. (Iversen, 1973, p. 100-101)
An Important Consideration, and an Iversen Summary
The reader may now see that human land use practices over the past 10,000 years, and those of today, are characterized by the burning and cutting of forests; plowing, overgrazing, eroding, and continuously demineralizing
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crop and forest soils; and by the release of large quantities of toxic chemicals and fossil fuel carbon dioxide. The reader may then consider the likelihood of a sooner-or-later than average (10,000-12,000 years) end to the present interglacial. Yet we know now from Johannes Iversen (and others) that gradual soil de-vitalization is a primary ecological process of the interglacial periods, and in concluding his “Retrogressive Vegetational Succession in the Post-Glacial,” he tells us, and warns us, that in former interglacial epochs: “The anthropogenic factor was negligible, and interglacial regional pollen diagrams demonstrate very clearly the increasing importance of soil degradation (Andersen 1963), until in the final stage the effect of the climatic factor becomes decisive.” (Iversen, 1964, p. 69-70) Svend Th. Andersen, Geological Survey of Denmark
Pollen deposit studies by Svend Th. Andersen of three past interglacial periods forcefully support the theses of John Hamaker and Johannes Iversen, as documented by three of Andersen’s published papers. These papers are:
“Interglacial Plant Successions in the Light of Environmental Changes,” 1964;
“Interglacial Vegetational Succession and Lake Development in Denmark,” 1966; and
“Interglacial Vegetation and Soil Development,” 1969.
As did Iversen, Andersen clearly saw the broad picture, with interglacial stages representing, in his own words, “. . . stable intervals between the glacial stages of disturbance and chaos. The vegetation had a chance to develop until the new glacial released its destructive forces.” (1969, p. 90)
His studies demonstrate how “the interglacial successions of vegetation form uninterrupted sequences of forest stages,” which he saw as “intriguing objects for reflections as to the causes of long-time vegetal changes.” These vegetal changes, unlike the present interglacial, “are undisturbed by human influence.” (1964, p. 359) Andersen divided the interglacials into four broad phases (similar to Iversen’s, Fig. 3.2) which he termed protocratic, mesocratic, oligocratic, and the final phase preceding the new glacial period—the telocratic.
At the start of the interglacials, open forest of pioneer species entered, which Andersen called the “quickly spreading trees and shrubs with unpretentious requirements to climate and soils.” Birch, pine, poplar, juniper and willow were most important in Denmark.
In this most practical study, he notes: “This vegetation belonged to the fresh soil left by the glaciers, and as mentioned by Iversen (1958) this protocratic phase resembled the conditions in the early Postglacial strongly.” (1969, p. 97) The rich mixed forest of mull vegetation had of course not yet developed, and the acid humus soils obviously had little role to play.
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In the mesocratic phase, the soil had developed a high fertility, therefore, “the plants of rich soils reach maximum frequencies.” This was a time when immense forests covered great portions of the Earth (Johnson, 1978; etc.), and the climate created by these typically immense trees (and the other factors) earned the name “Postglacial Climatic Optimum”
(Lamb, 1977), which spanned the years from about 6,000 to 3,000 B.C. Lamb says these trees, such as oaks, were “reported to be often of remarkably large size, e.g. with trunks reaching a height of 27.5 meters before the first branch.” (Lamb, 1977, p. 373) These are found preserved in now-degenerate treeless peat soils in England and elsewhere.
This phase is dominated by trees such as elm, oak, lime, hazel, ash, hornbeam, and alder, growing on stable mull soils which Iversen showed to eventually begin to retrogress.
Andersen gives a description of the process similar to Iversen’s, which in light of its immediate importance, is worthy of quoting here. In these mull soils, of roughly 6,000-3,000
B.C., “the leaching of the soil salts is to some extent counteracted by the mixing activity of the soil fauna and the ability of the prevailing trees and shrubs to extract bases from the deeper soil layers and contribute them to the upper layers during the decomposition of their litter. However, a slow removal of calcium carbonate will bring the soils into a less stable state, where the equilibrium may be more easily disturbed.” (Andersen, 1966, p. 119) This leaching of calcium carbonate (lime) is shown to be so significant to the topsoil ecology because, according to Andersen, ”the leaching of soil minerals other than lime will be insignificant, until the calcium carbonate has been removed.” (p. 121) With this gradual leaching, “The mull forest could not maintain itself, and with the lapse of time, caused itself a depauperization and acidification of the upper soil layers, which extended so far that the dense forest receded and more open vegetation types expanded.”
(1969, p.99)
Andersen, too (confirming Iversen), shows that the changeover from mineral-rich mull soils to acidifying mor soil conditions begins in the mesocratic, and with the gradual demineralization of formerly calcareous soils, growth of impenetrable hardpans and soil life die-outs follow. This creates shallow topsoils susceptible to drought or being easily swamped; and this infertile state leads to takeover by heathlands, peat bogs, and trees with ability to survive on acidic soils—spruce, pine, birch, poplar, etc. (p. 98) This condition becomes prevalent in Andersen’s oligocratic phase, and is brought on, he says, “as a result of degeneration of the soils.” (1966, p. 123) The increasing podsolization, characterized by increasing demineralization and acidity, continues up through the interglacial telocratic (end) phase.
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Significantly, his pollen deposits reveal the conditions both in the oligocratic and the telocratic. The oligocratic shows clearly the “decrease of rich soil vegetation,” indicating “a gradual expansion of leached and podsolized soils.” The final interglacial phase, the telocratic, is the time when the demineralized soils begin to be removed: “The rigorous conditions at the end of the interglacial are reflected by an. . . increase in allochthonous mineral matter. . . no doubt due to increasing surficial erosion.” (1966, p.121) So, where are we now, after 10,000 plus years of this interglacial? Surprisingly, neither Iversen nor Andersen specifically raise the question. Andersen’s articles, however, together with the information in virtually every textbook on soils, forestry, or ecology, leave no doubt that the present world civilization is (at least) deep into his oligocratic phase. His further strong evidence showing that the Scandinavian lakes and soils reflect a close parallel development from basic to acidic conditions (1966, p.117), and the fact that many thousands of lakes there and in the northeast U.S. and Canada are already acidified to lifelessness (with a final kick from acid rains), also confirms it. Rapidly accelerating worldwide erosion rates are exemplified by the U.S. where 1975 Soil Conservation Service (SCS) figures of 3 billion tons of topsoil lost per year (Brown, 1978) have jumped to 4 billion in 1978 (CEQ, 1978), and now, according to the Chief of the Soil Conservation Service, to 6.4 billion tons in 1981
(Berg, 1981). These facts, along with the increasingly “rigorous conditions” imposed by the weather since at least 1972, very strongly indicate that the telocratic end phase may indeed have begun.
Svend Th. Andersen just says: “Soil development was indeed an important factor in the Quaternary cycles.”
The Picture Grows. . . More Obvious
The geological and ecological framework for the severely challenging picture presented by John D. Hamaker, and further clarified by the work of Iversen, Andersen, and earlier considerations, should now be intelligible to the reader. Over a dozen more books and articles, by as many researchers, have presented themselves as further proof of the regular cycles of the interglacial soil development-demineralization-glaciation (remineralization) sequence, suggesting an irrefutable status for the foundations of Hamaker’s arguments.
2002 DW update: In the interests of total readability for a wide and diverse audience, brief summaries of the above-mentioned books and articles were originally omitted from this book, but were available as a Supplement to those readers wanting further documentation supporting Hamaker’s thesis. Now they are available as Appendix II, “Supplementary Perspectives to Chapter 3,” in my separate volume, To Love And Regenerate The Earth, also at this website.
T H E S U R V I V A L O F C I V I L I Z A T I O N
Chapter 4
The Role of CO in the
2
Process of Glaciation
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4
Introduction
“The Role of CO in the Process of Glaciation,” first published in April 1980, was written 2
as a concise explanation of the glacial process which could be understood by the U.S.
Congress, at a time when “the CO problem” was just being recognized by some of its 2
members, but not yet taken very seriously.
At one point, a member of Michigan Congressman Howard Wolpe’s office (Keith Laughlin) informed John Hamaker that the paper would indeed be circulated to every member of Congress. Apparently it was never done. Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future Director Anne Cheatham stated in her letter of response, March, 1980—“Mr.
Laughlin and I both agree that if Mr. Hamaker is right we had all better do something soon. … We will be back in touch with you as the situation develops.” No evidence of an effort to prove John Hamaker’s thesis true or false has been forthcoming.
“The Role of CO in the Process of Glaciation” appeared in Acres, USA in September, 2
1980. Its title refers to the relationship that has been virtually never considered by the hundreds of researchers of glaciation, starting with the first “Great Ice Age” theory of Louis Agassiz in 1837 (Imbrie and Imbrie, 1979).
Systematic measurements of atmospheric CO began only as late as 1958 (Calder, 1975).
2
Most climatologists, one may observe, seem fond of repeating the extremely dangerous oversimplification of CO ’s “greenhouse effect.” “We are going to warm up” is the general 2
message reaching the media and public from the climatologists.
The crux of this problem was perhaps stated best by John Hamaker in an earlier article (“Life or Death—Yours,” 1976), in reference to two well-known, outspoken climatologists, when he said, “Of course, neither of these gentlemen know about the role of life in and on the soil in demineralizing it in a period of 10,000 to 15,000 years, depending on the amount of ground rock supplied by the last glacial advance. Nor do they know and understand the Earth’s tectonic system and its role in determining the weather.”
The first six chapters of this book offer that fundamental understanding.
4
The Role of CO in the
2
Process of Glaciation
Facts:
Glaciation occurs whenever the supply of soil minerals ground from rocks by the last glaciation is used up. This exhaustion of soil minerals by the life in and on the soil initiates the whole chain of events which results in restocking the soil with minerals and a new proliferation of life.
It is a function of plant life to remove all excess CO (carbon dioxide) from the 2
atmosphere. It normally does this simply by growing faster in response to an increase in CO .
2
It can no longer do so. Plant life gets its cell protoplasm from the soil microorganisms. The microorganisms produce the protoplasm by taking elements from the mixture of stone in the soil, and combining them with the carbon in some form of plant or soil organism residue to make the organic compounds. When the elements are no longer available in the soil (which is the case at present), the microorganisms die of famine, and the plant life also starves to death for lack of protoplasm.
The dead plant life is set on fire by lightning; the carbon in the plant life goes into the atmosphere as CO . The CO traps the sun’s heat radiating from the earth and radiates it back, 2
2
thus increasing the surface temperature. The CO has no heating effect at the poles in the 2
winter when it is dark 24 hours a day. It has maximum effect in the equatorial region at the latitudes where the sun’s rays are most intense.
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When air gets hotter, its atmospheric pressure decreases. It is then easier for the cold air moving down over a cold land mass to displace the warm equatorial air and force it to move poleward over the warm ocean to replace the cold air moving toward the equator. This is the normal air circulation pattern impressed on the west winds. The temperature differential is minimal in summer and at a maximum in winter. During glaciation, when there is an extensive ice field, there is no summer because the refrigerated air from the ice field maintains the temperature differential required to carry the clouds to the northern latitude.
Thus there can be unusually large masses of hot air in the equatorial latitudes and unusually large masses of cold air in the polar latitudes.
Glaciation, or for that matter anything else on this earth, can not take place without an expenditure of energy. By the time the ice sheet has built up between the temperate zones and the poles, the ocean level will have dropped some 100 feet or more, depending on how much CO is in the atmosphere to provide the heat of vaporization. Ocean-level measurements of 2
the water transferred to the land mass are not accurate, because land elevation varies with the ice load and with the hydraulic pressure under the land mass. Without a build-up in CO and 2
hence temperature, glaciation can not happen.
Glaciation is only a little more complicated than your refrigerator. Energy is put into the system to remove the heat from one batch of air and dump it into another. In the case of glaciation, the dump is the Polar Regions, which have an excess of cooling capacity. The refrigerated air flows toward the equator to gradually eliminate the tropical zones.
The average temperature at the start of a glacial period must be higher than the interglacial temperature, and must remain higher until the cooling effect of the ice sheet starts bringing it down. Unfortunately, that will not help agriculture, because the northern part of the temperate zone will experience summer freezes and frosts and the southern temperate zone will have excessive heat and drought. We can expect violent weather everywhere.
When an ice field builds up to about 50 feet thick, the pressure causes the ice on the bottom of a glacier to melt and in this condition the glaciers “flow.” As they flow, they grind all the rocks they flow over. The ground rock moves with the melt water from high elevations to lower elevations. As the glacial debris clogs all the rivers, the water spreads out over the land filling the low areas with glacial till. The water then moves on from one low area to another, thus leveling the entire land surface with fresh glacial till.
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The temperature difference between the glaciated area and the equatorial zone induces violent winds which ultimately carry the finer particles of ground material all the way to the tropical zones. Luxuriant temperate-zone forests then begin the long task of withdrawing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The build-up of ice stops as the CO decreases in the 2
atmosphere. The melting of the ice sheets reduces the excessive volcanism from the tectonic system. The temperate-zone vegetation follows the melting glaciers toward the poles, and tropical forests return to the tropical zones.
It is cloud cover which supplies the moisture for glaciation and protects the glaciated area from melting too much in the summer time. A necessary condition for glaciation is that snowfall shall exceed snow melt, plus pressure melt, by a sufficient amount to build up 100
feet or more of ocean water as ice on the land area during a total of 90,000 years of glacial advances that alternate with limited glacial retreats. The 1980 late winter floods in Hawaii and the unprecedented 11 inches of rain in a week in Southern California, the “worst in history” flood in Louisiana, the freeze in Florida, and the 120-mph winds at Anchorage, Alaska are a forecast of things to come. The waves of clouds now coming in off the Pacific on an almost daily schedule will give way to solid masses of clouds when all the forests have burned.
Glaciation usually occurs at a time when the earth’s tectonic system has fired up volcanic activity by feeding ocean floor into the continental heaters, which are located primarily in the Pacific “ring of fire.” Volcanic action releases large amounts of liquefied gases trapped in the molten rock. CO and sulphur dioxide (SO ) are the principal gases released, and both cause 2
2
the “greenhouse effect.” The result is our present “hundred-year cold cycle.” These cycles vary in their time interval, the intervals being determined by the pressure in the tectonic system. To the volcanic gases are added CO from the decaying and burning mineral-starved 2
vegetation. Together, they initiate the change from interglacial to glacial climate.
When the ice sheet is formed, the weight of ice forces the earth to sink lower in elevation.
The more liquid part of the semi-solid, partially molten rock on which the crust of the earth moves is forced back into the tectonic circulatory system and is forced out from under the crust in volcanic actions. One of the actions is along the mid-ocean ridges where the increased weight of exuded rock increases the pressure in the entire system. Volcanism in a glacial period is several times that of an interglacial period. The dust exerts a cooling effect by radiating back into space some of the sun’s rays. It provides dust particles for inducing precipitation. It assists in the job of remineralizing the earth’s surface. The increased amount of CO released by the increased volcanic action intensifies the glaciation. When the ice 2
melts, the pressure drops rapidly in the tectonic system, volcanism decreases, and the glacial system collapses back into the interglacial climate conditions.
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The acidic gases from volcanism and burning forests quench the life on earth by leaching the few remaining basic elements into the subsoil. Thus the change from interglacial to glacial conditions occurs in about 20 years as reported in Nature by G. Woillard in 1979.
Man’s contribution of CO from fossil fuels, acidic gases from various sources, and forest 2
destruction has probably moved the present glacial process forward in time by perhaps 500
years. It will probably shorten the 20-year change period.
That’s essentially all there is to the glacial process—all but the consequences to mankind.
All of the requirements for glaciation are in place and accelerating in intensity at a very fast pace. The percentage of CO increase is rising rapidly, and the pH of precipitation is rapidly 2
moving toward intolerable acidity. Within a very few years the 1979 crop losses in Russia will be intensified and spread throughout the temperate zone. Most of the world’s population will be starving to death. Summer frosts and freezes, short growing seasons, drought and violent storms, plus rapidly diminishing soil minerals and increasing rain acidity will destroy the world’s grain crops.
Fallacies:
It may be that the average temperature of the atmosphere is getting warmer. However, it is totally false to assume that the polar ice will melt and that temperate zone crops will have to be moved toward the poles. The time scale that has been allowed by the “experts” (on whom government is relying for reacting to the falsely-assumed weather change) is much longer than we actually have because the first stage of glaciation is now occurring—the killing of the plant life which includes our crops. We must react immediately or prepare to die.
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2
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The idea that we can keep on using fossil fuels is totally false. On the 25th of June 1979, a cold wave came out of Canada and killed frost-sensitive vegetables from Minnesota to Michigan. In a small area of each state the temperature dropped low enough to destroy all crops. This is not supposed to happen in late June but it did. A few degrees colder and all crops would have been wiped out. The principal cause of the problem is CO in the 2
atmosphere. By June of 1979 the percent of increase of CO over an assumed normal level of 2
290 ppm was about 15 percent. In 1985 it will