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By David Deming a geophysicist and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.

Those who ignore the geologic perspective do so at great risk. In fall of 1985, geologists warned that a Columbian volcano, Nevado del Ruiz, was getting ready to erupt. But the volcano had been dormant for 150 years. So government officials and inhabitants of nearby towns did not take the warnings seriously. On the evening of November 13, Nevado del Ruiz erupted, triggering catastrophic mudslides. In the town of Armero, 23,000 people were buried alive in a matter of seconds.


For ninety percent of the last million years, the normal state of the Earth's climate has been an ice age. Ice ages last about 100,000 years, and are punctuated by short periods of warm climate, or interglacials. The last ice age started about 114,000 years ago. It began instantaneously. For a hundred-thousand years, temperatures fell and sheets of ice a mile thick grew to envelop much of North America, Europe and Asia. The ice age ended nearly as abruptly as it began. Between about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the temperature in Greenland rose more than 50 °F.

Full story The_coming_ice_age (http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/05/the_coming_ice_age.html)

This idea isn't new-especially among geologists. Global warming might be a good thing-slightly delaying the next ice age.We-the USA-can easily survive a sea level rise, but we won't survive an ice age.
Of course, the geologists say/imply that another ice age is inevitable- no matter what we do.
No matter-conservation is a good thing because it decreases our dependence on foreign energy-a much more immediate concern.

Charlie

I don't believe anyone knows for sure what is going to happen, but we do know polluting and consuming more than we need is not good. I think finding ways to reduce both can only increase our technological and knowledge base, thereby improving humanity's plight.

"May 13, 2009 ... And the Sun now appears to be entering a new period of quiescence. ... As I write, the sun remains quiet."

After teasing us with a few new sunspots months ago, and then going quiet again, spots returned this past week. See Spaceweather (http://www.spaceweather.com/). It remains to be seen whether this is real, or just another tease.

Any claims this year that the Sun has entered a new quiet period are premature. Considering its history since 1900, the next cycle won't be statistically overdue by two-sigma (95% confidence) until about the beginning to 2010.