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Should consumers wonder if the electric vehicle is another fad? (http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090116/OPINION03/901160306)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/506/ice.JPGFrank Beckmann - The Detroit News (http://detnews.com) – Jan 16, 2009

Drilling and tar sands don't seem like a viable, long term answer. -- Ed.

Sure it's cold enough for politicians to have their hands in their own pockets.

But I suppose we'd better get used to it, especially on the heels of another report -- this one out of Russia -- cautioning that the Earth has entered another ice age because of a cyclical reduction in solar activity. As usual with climate change, man can do nothing to stop it.

But the things we can do something about -- aside from wearing warmer clothing -- continue to be affected by the global warming alarms. Nowhere is that more evident than the North American International Auto Show, which opens to the public Saturday at Cobo Center.

Consider that the cheapest and most efficient form of transportation energy on earth is oil. Yet in the name of enviromania, our country's government has blocked domestic exploration for this natural resource in the wilderness of Alaska and under the depths of the Outer Continental Shelf.

In the meantime, America has blocked the importation of certain oil from the Alberta tar sands of our friendly neighbor, Canada, and refused to allow construction of more nuclear plants to help heat our homes more... http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090116/OPINION03/901160306

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-earth_ice_age-0

The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

Whoa, now that's interesting...

Harry

Every time I find myself at Pravda I start to feel like I'm lost in the pages of the National Enquirer. Some of the things they report are just plain ridiculous.

I think the "best guess" of scientists is that we are between Ice Ages and are 10,000 years from the next one.

They might very well be right about an Ice Age coming; the question-always- is when. Yes, it will make most of the N hemisphere uninhabitable.However, we and 400-500 generations will all be long dead by then.

I do remember the movie-Dennis Quade- in which Global warming brought on an Ice Age. Fun movie!

Charlie

Here's an excerpt from another Pravda article by Gregory F. Fegel (whose article is cited to in Earthling's post above.)

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/106172-september_11_attacks-0

A preponderance of evidence shows that the highest officials of the Bush Administration, in collusion with many other officials from the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, FEMA, NSA, NORAD, New York City officials, air-traffic contollers, airline executives, controlled demolitions experts, computer graphics technicians, media executives, and others together planned and committed the horrible attacks of 9/11/2001 against the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Is the article from Earthling's post the one referred to (apparently seriously) by that Detroit newspaper?

Everyone seems to have a bias. A local meteorologist editorialized in the local paper today that AGW cannot be supported because the current decade (so far) of Wichita KS temperatures are a few tenths of a degree C less than some model of climate change predicted. I cannot see any evidence for or against AGW from such a short and isolated set of data. He also stated that there is more ice at the poles (combined) than average.

Elsewhere I read (Hot Flat & Crowded, eg) that the 10 warmest years on record occurred within the last 11 years, that summer sea ice is disappearing, that land ice sheets are about to slide into the oceans, that the ocean currents will thus die, etc.

It would be helpful if the naysayers would specifically say what data in the AGW report is inaccurate or incorrectly interpreted by the climatologists, so maybe a debate could occur and lay persons like me can decide whether to rush out for winter coats or for solar panels. Geesh.

A little more in the way of facts need to be added. First the warmest of record only covers when we humans have been keeping records. The warmest since the end of the last ice age was about 8,000 years ago.

There have been periods in the far past when the Earth was a lot warmer.

I believe the current consensus might well be that absent human factors we might now be well into the start of a new ice age. - Actually the terminology needs some clarification we technically in an interglacial period in the middle of an ice age. But most people not in the field don't seem to know the correct terminology and ignore it - it doesn't help that getting the terminology correct confuses people.

For most of the last several hundred million years the Earth has be significantly colder than it is now. The emergence into the current interglacial period likely had nothing to do we what humans did or did not do. However the claim is that we are prolonging the interglacial period and that in fact our actions are causing a rise in global temperatures.

The real current issue is of global warming is what will be the impact on human civilization. We don't seem to be perceived as being very good at adapting to change. However the history of the earth's climate has always been one of change.