The Skyliner

Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Opinion

Cody Fields
Staff Writer


I have never been one for hugging trees. A friendly wave hello or a good, firm handshake has always better suited my style. And my style may become more accepted after the United Nations released their 2008 average global temperature forecast, which says temperatures this year will decrease.

And they have been decreasing since 1998, according to skepticalscience.com. So why is Al Gore still talking about how much global temperatures have risen over the last 150 years?

I accredit it up to ignoring the facts.

The first methodical thermometer-based temperature did not exist until about 1850. So we only have real records for the last 158 years of the thousands of years the earth has existed.

Then, in the 1970s, climate change advocates proclaimed that we were headed straight for another ice age. Does anyone else sense inconsistencies?

Before 1850, scientists widely accepted that there was a period of time in which the earth warmed, centered around 1000 AD, and a Little Ice Age lasted from around 1650 until about 1850, which is evidence that the earth goes through cycles of warming and cooling independent of human influence.

NASA reported in 2000, "Air temperatures in the lower atmosphere have not increased appreciably, according to satellite data, and the sea ice around Antarctica has actually been growing for the last 20 years."

The truth is that the shrinking ice shelves have nothing to do with humans.

The British Antarctic Survey reported in January, "The first evidence of a volcanic eruption from beneath Antarctica's most rapidly changing ice sheet" had been found, and the volcano "remains active."

I find it silly that we have become so egotistical that we would assume we could make an entire planet warm by industrializing, especially when the planet is covered by two-thirds water.

God will not let us destroy the planet.

In fact, he stupid-proofed the planet in the form of trees, which is why I wave hello to them when I pass by.

In the hullabaloo about carbon emissions, we have forgotten the fact that plant life inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. If there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the plants breathe more and grow faster. If there is less, the opposite applies, like when people try to climb Mt. Everest.

The earth is self-correcting, and we cannot do much about that.

Still, we should take care of what we have and avoid abusing the environment.

Weather Channel founder John Coleman was onto something when he suggested suing Al Gore for defrauding the public on the facts of climate change (or in this case, stability).

Remember, Al Gore, we gave you your global warming crisis, and we are about to take it away.

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