Climate Change: By Two Major Naval Wars

climate-change-arnd-bernaerts To minimize the danger of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) by carbon dioxide emissions, international institutions require an investment of about 10 times the material cost of the entire World War II within the next few decades. The book deals with the “climate change” issue as well but from a completely different perspective, namely the threat of climatic change by human activities in the marine environment since sailing the seas with screw driven vessels during the last 150 years. The book proves that four months of activities at sea in autumn 1939 had been sufficient to generate the coldest winter in Europe since the Little Ice Age and that six years of global naval war were enough to contribute to the only global cooling period since the world got warmer since about 1850, which lasted from 1940 to the 1970th.

Dr. Arnd Bernaerts deserves thanks. His research is of the finest, curious, innovative, thoughtful, competent, comprehensive, and dedicated. Maybe it needed an all-round man like him, a trainee on one of the last cargo tall sailing ships, ship master of a general cargo vessel, navigator in yacht cup competition, (where I first met him), and as a lawyer, advocate and consultant. His research ability stems from his doctorate in law, his book on the “UN Convention on the Law of the Sea”, and a number of essays. His motive is expressed on page 14 with
reference to the “General Obligation” of article 192 in the Law of the Sea Convention: “States have the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment”, noting that::

“This obligation has great importance for the atmosphere, weather and climate, because if mankind understands and protects the oceans, it would minimize the threat to humanity posed by anthropogenic climate change. If man fails on ocean matters, or understands too little, or too late, errors can never be corrected.”

Mankind should realize this and preserve life and nature. Maybe this book can open some ones eyes in this sense. Thanks to the author for pursuing this difficult subject by remarkable independence and looking across scientific disciplines. The book focuses on how man can influence the unstable balance in the ocean and atmosphere by blind and unrestrained war or ocean uses. The book serves as a reminder that without the oceans in focus, climate research is likely to fail or head into disaster.

Dieter E. Koop

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Arnd Bernaerts

Arnd-bernaerts At the age of 16 he started as decks boy on the tall sailing ship PAMIR, and received a Master Mariner license in July 1964 to become ship master of MS BOA NOVA in 1968. In the meantime, he had enrolled as a law student at Hamburg of University, passing the 1st and two years later the 2nd State Law Examination in November 1973, thereon received admission to act as attorney of law in courts, and four years later was awarded “Dr. juris.” by the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen.

From 1976 and 1985 he ran a law office in Hamburg, where in 1988 his text book about the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was published (see ‘Books’ below & HERE); followed by research work on Climate Change.

Bernaerts’ climate work focused on raising the awareness of the importance of better understanding the oceans to minimize the risk of anthropogenic impact on the marine environment, which may have a profound impact on climate change.

He discovered that the major climatic shifts since 1850 can be linked to naval war activities during World War I, namely the warming of the Northern Hemisphere from about 1920 to 1939 (2), as well as global cooling from 1940 to mid 1970s, which started with three extraordinary harsh winters in Europe since December 1939 (3). In many regions they were the coldest for more than 100 years, as analyzed in several books since 2006.

He is retired, and currently lives in Germany, where one of his main objectives is to make people aware of the reasons for the climate changes in our world.

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