Not Accepting the Message

It always boggled my mind how normally skeptical people were so willing to accept the following propositions uncritically:

Temperatures are rising worldwide.

This phenomenon is attributable to an increase in “greenhouse gases”.

Greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide, are largely produced by human activity.

Rising temperatures are bad (I guess that’s why everyone goes north for the winter--sorry, couldn't resist).

Therefore, we should overhaul our daily activities, whatever the cost, in order to forestall the catastrophic consequences of global warming.

Now comes word that we should be worried about global cooling.

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

Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

Last July we alluded to this possibility.

Centuries ago Christianity finally acknowledged that man was at the solar system's periphery, not the center. Looks like another religion has trouble accepting the message. © 2008 Stephen Yuen