A World Crisis: The New Global Terror

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.” – The Cooling World - Newsweek, April 28, 1975. http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

“As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.” – Another Ice Age? - TIME Magazine, June 24, 1974. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

This all sounds pretty scary, right? If we were able to go back in time and tell the scientists of the day that they were completely wrong, they would be shocked. Many of them were just as sure of their research as scientists are today. The average citizen was being told, “The trend shows no indication of reversing.” Food shortages, droughts, tornadoes, thicker ice, and lands covered in snow during the summer were all blamed on this new phenomenon called “global cooling.” The 1974 article in TIME Magazine goes on to say:

“Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.”

How serious did they believe this threat was? Let’s read on:

“Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.”

So, I’m confused. Is man causing the planet to warm today, after we had caused it to cool in the three decades leading up to the 70’s? Are we keeping the sun from heating the Earth, or are we heating it more ourselves? Are we going to be in another ice age in the next few hundred years because of global cooling or global warming? Are the scientists who warned us about global cooling in the 70’s now warning us about global warming, or did they admit their mistakes and resign or retire?

Today’s controversy surrounding the topic of global warming is intense. Supporters of the ideology who believe man is causing this warming trend are very adamant about trying to stop it. Opponents to this thought, who are constantly ridiculed and threatened by the proponents, do not see the immediate crisis that is being reported almost daily in the world media markets. Both sides debate this issue very passionately for many reasons. But who is right and what are we to do? Let’s first take a look at what we know about the history of the Earth’s climate.

Prehistoric Similarities to Today

The most important bit of information we need to know, is the fact that the Earth has been providing us the longest and coolest climate since the Carboniferous Period, 300 million years ago. During the latter part of this period, global temperatures were very similar to what our planet has experienced recently, which is some of the coolest climatic times in its history. These average global temperatures were near 12 degrees Celsius (54 degrees Fahrenheit), much like the average temperatures we’ve experienced in our Tertiary and current Quaternary Period. Another similarity between these two time periods is the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide. In the Carboniferous Period, the levels were around 350 ppm (parts per million), compared to today’s 380 ppm.

These two time periods, today’s (the Tertiary - Quaternary) and the late Carboniferous, are the only times in the last 600 million years that we have had less than 400 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide and a great similarity in low global temperatures.

But, is there a correlation to cooler temperatures and low carbon dioxide levels?

We need to look a little further back in time to the Ordovician Period, over 450 million years ago, to find out. During this period, the Earth entered into an ice age similar to the previously mentioned, but its carbon dioxide levels were near 4400 ppm, or almost twelve times higher than they are today. How is this possible? According to man-made global warming proponents, the amount of carbon dioxide directly affects the rise in temperatures. If the levels were twelve times the amount they are today, how could the planet be just as cool? The “theory” of the greenhouse effect tells us that the Earth’s climate should have been much like your oven when you’re baking cookies.
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

After the Carboniferous Period, the Earth entered into its Permian Period, in which the temperatures dramatically rose to over 22 degrees Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit). Shortly afterwards, it took a slight dip below 22 degrees C and maintained this temperature for about another 200 million years. There was one drop below 16 degrees C (61 degrees F) around 150 million years ago, which lasted for several million years before rising back to its previous warmer climate. At no point during this time frame did the average temperature of the planet come close to the low temperatures (less than 14 degrees C, or 57 degrees F) we’ve experienced for the last several million years. Furthermore, there have only been three time periods in which the Earth’s climate has been this low. None of them have lasted for much longer than 40 million years.

In the last 600 million years of Earth’s climatic history, less than one-sixth of this time has produced temperatures below 20 degrees Celsius – 6 degrees C warmer than today.

Our More Recent Climate

Around 40 million years ago, our planet began descending into another ice age. The climate changed from a very hot global temperature to the type of climate we experience today. During this ice age, the Earth has entered different glacial (colder) and interglacial (warmer) periods. In a glacial period, more of the Earth’s crust is covered by glaciers and other ice and snow. In an interglacial period, the snow and ice melt and the glaciers recede. We are currently in an interglacial that began about 10,000 years ago and may last another 2,000 to 40,000 years. Or, we may completely come out of our current ice age and experience climates that are closer to the Earth’s norm. The future is hard to predict, as you can imagine.

For the past one million years or so, the Earth’s changes in climate appear to coincide with its orbital positions and axial tilts. A Serbian engineer, Milutin Milankovitch, started conducting research near the beginning of the 20th century into the correlation of our climate and our position in the solar system, and the significance in the amount of solar radiation absorbed from the Sun. His discoveries came to be known as the Milankovitch Cycles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

Another aspect of the Earth’s orbit (not studied by Milankovitch) is its orbital inclination. This refers to the variation in our orbital plane in relation to the approximate orbital plane of Jupiter. This variation occurs in a cycle of about 100,000 years – the same pattern we’ve seen with glacial and interglacial periods in the last several hundred thousand years. The effects are apparently created by the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the Earth due to the differing amounts of exposure, but many scientists don’t agree with this assertion. In fact, it is not known for sure what causes ice ages and there are many different opinions about what causes glacial and interglacial periods as well.

Even closer to our current times, there were other shifts in our climate. From about 16,000 to 5,000 years ago, different parts of the world experienced warming trends for a few thousand years at a time. This warming trend is known as the Holocene Optimum. In general, the global temperatures increased a few degrees Celsius to a climate slightly warmer than our present conditions by an average of about one degree Celsius. There was a general cooling period that followed, with a few shorter warming spots leading up to the Little Climatic Optimum (LCO), or what is commonly called the Medieval Warming Period.

As we approached the first millennium A.D., the global climate warmed again by a couple degrees. This warming began the LCO. Compared to today, the weather was warmer and drier. It lasted several hundred years, finally coming to an end during the 13th century. While the cause of this warming period is not certain, there is plenty of speculation. Some believe it had to do with space dust, some think it was an increase in solar radiation, and yet others attribute the change to global wind cycles. The one thing that is for sure is the fact that humans thrived because of this warm climate.

The milder global temperature calmed the seas of the North Atlantic allowing increased exploration and settlements by the Vikings. They were able to maintain settlements on Greenland and even made further trips to North America a few hundred years before Columbus. There was a great decrease in famines, disease (including the plague which retreated back to Asia), and natural disasters around the world - the population in Europe more than doubled during this time. More crops were able to be grown in Northern Europe and Britain became an exporter of fine wines. Northern China was even able to grow citrus orchards. The quality of life in Europe seemingly increased as slavery disappeared and the first hints of capitalism and democracy emerged. Species of plants and animals were mostly undisturbed by the change in climate.

Can all of this be attributed solely to warmer weather? No…but is it a coincidence that Greece experienced this same type of prosperity during a warming trend from 700 to 500 B.C.? Perhaps this may persuade you: “In North America, the Anasazi civilization achieved its apex. The classic period of the Anasazi, 1100 to 1300, coincides almost exactly with the peak of medieval civilization.”
http://reactor-core.org/summers-lease.html

So, what causes warming and cooling trends around the planet? Even with extensive research, most scientists can’t agree on one, or even many particular sources. But based on our data and history, what is there to fear from a warmer planet? Remember, we are living in some of the coolest times on Earth. And despite what you may have heard about a warmer planet, there were no mass-extinctions of plant and animal life during the LCO, even though the winters of those times were considerably warmer. There is nothing to fear from a warming Earth. If anything, it should be welcomed by the countries that suffer from famine, disease, and constant natural disasters, including droughts.

The Rising Seas

One of the main tactics the proponents of man-made global warming use is fear. They constantly issue warnings about severe disasters and mass-extinctions. These warnings range from a desert-Earth, to the coming of another ice age (or glacial period, to use more accurate terminology), and rising oceans. Of course they have no evidence to support such predictions, but don’t let that stop them from telling the world that the impending doom is near. Actually, the evidence doesn’t quite seem to work in their favor at all. In most cases, the facts contradict their warnings.

As previously mentioned, the LCO during the medieval times showed us that famine and other major disasters were subdued when the temperatures increased. But let’s look at some of the specific claims about our future.

For many years, we’ve heard about the poor polar bears that will have nowhere to live soon because of decreasing amounts of ice in the Arctic. We’ve heard that their numbers have been decreasing over the last several decades and they will soon be extinct if we don’t do something to stop global warming. Well, the truth is that their population has nearly tripled in the last forty years. Estimates today put the polar bear population at over 20,000 and even up to as much as 40,000. So, why do we get all of these reports about polar bears being near extinction? Well, the proponents of global warming pick data from one small sub-population which happens to be decreasing then present it as evidence that the entire species is in decline. It certainly had you worried, didn’t it?

Another favorite is the threat of rising oceans. We are told that sea levels are rising and there will be little time before the coastlines are changed dramatically. Cities like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and Miami are all in the crosshairs of Mother Nature’s wrath because of our human activities and their effects on our climate. To be honest, the oceans are indeed rising. They have been rising for over 20,000 years. This is due to the melt-off of glaciers at the end of our last glacial period. However, about 8,000 years ago the rise had basically hit its plateau. After rising about 120 meters in 12,000 years (one centimeter per year), the oceans have only risen less than five meters since. In the past 125 years, they have risen an astonishing 20 centimeters, or 1.5 millimeters per year. I hope you don’t own any waterfront property.
(Diagrams: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level )

Let’s explore the global warming proponents – in my opinion – favorite tactic when discussing the effects of human activities on the planet: the Ozone Layer.

First of all, we need to understand that depleting ozone in our atmosphere has almost nothing to do with the actual warming of the planet, but I’ll take the time to explain this anyway. The ozone layer was not discovered until 1913 and most of the equipment that measures ozone levels wasn’t in place until the late 50’s. That means we hardly have any accurate readings before 1960, and it wasn’t until 1985 that a “hole” was discovered over Antarctica. This isn’t actually a hole however; it is just a large area of reduced ozone relative to the rest of the globe. It should be noted that, usually, immediately surrounding the hole is a band of relatively higher levels of ozone compared to most other areas of the atmosphere.

Now that we know what the “hole” is, how do we know when it was created? Does anyone have any ozone readings prior to 1950? No data from 1,000 years ago? None from 10,000 years ago? The reality is, we don’t know if there had always been an area like the one over Antarctica. The instruments utilized for measuring ozone levels didn’t exist prior to the last century, and neither did satellite imagery. Sure there is plenty of research that shows man-made chemicals have an effect on ozone, but so does nature. The 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo caused a 20% reduction of ozone over Antarctica because of the amount of aerosols it released. http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/Ozone/ozonelayer.html

Ozone can be created and destroyed without the influence of humans.

The ozone layer can be a tricky argument for global warming proponents. While ozone in our stratosphere does absorb ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, this absorption creates a source of heat. The more ozone we have, the more heat will be created, and the Sun actually helps in the creation of more ozone. So, if global warming proponents are trying to strike fear into us by issuing warnings of a super-heated planet, why are they also concerned about depleting ozone? It appears to be a lose-lose situation for us. We may all die from skin cancer, but at least it won’t be too hot, or vice-versa.

So what happens if you are a person who doesn’t believe that global warming is a crisis, or if you don’t necessarily believe that humans are causing this crisis? You’d be surprised at the reactions of the proponents…or would you?

The New Global Terror

In order to understand the exaggerated circumstances predicted by environmentalists, we must first understand the mentality of the environmentalist. A great parallel between their belief structure and religion was examined and explained by Michael Crichton. In a speech given at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on September 15, 2003, he described the relation between Judeo-Christian beliefs and those of the environmentalist. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speeches/speeches_quote05.html

In this speech, Crichton explains the psyche of the human mind and its need for religion. Religion cannot be eliminated from our thought processes – only suppressed then manifested in a different form. In the mind of environmentalists, their duty (their religion) is formulated to protect the environment. But, much like other religions, their preconceived notions about the environment are not based on facts, only their faith. They do not truly understand how the environment works, so they can’t truly understand how to protect it. They have a false notion about what life was like before our modern advances in technology and also a skewed perception of what life is like in the wild. This leads to predictions whose results never come to fruition, like many in the past.

So, just like Christians believe in the teachings of the Bible, environmentalists believe in what they think they know about the environment. Except the conditions of our environment can be studied and recorded. However, the problem lies within the way information is passed along. Many false predictions and doomsday prophecies are only meant to scare people into doing the things that are thought to help our environment, without even knowing what the real consequences may be. Much of this false information is being disseminated by people who know it is not true. In another speech given in 2006, Crichton points out the devastation done to Yellowstone National Park by humans who believed they knew how to control the environment.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/complexity/complexity.html

During this speech, he also describes the fear tactics used to try to thwart certain human activities in order to stop one particular effect, but as a result, another adverse effect is created. The complexity of nature is far beyond anything we can understand even at this point in our civilization. We cannot control what happens around the Earth on a global scale. It is futile to even attempt it. The best we can hope for is to try to manage it, and make adjustments when necessary. This involves having humility and admitting when we are wrong and doing what is needed in order to correct things to find the best possible solutions. We don’t know everything about nature and how it works, and we certainly don’t know what will happen in the future. Spreading fear and telling people they are going to die unless certain environmental requirements are met is not a way to inform and educate the public.

“Genuine science is about gathering evidence and testing the veracity of theories, not cheerleading for a particular ideology. That is what is so disturbing about the current debate on global warming. Healthy skepticism, which should be at the heart of all scientific inquiry, is treated with contempt.” – Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=440869&in_page_id=1965&in_a_source=

This contempt is witnessed every day without most people thinking much of it. Why is it that the environmentalists are so defensive about their beliefs? In 1998, a Colorado ski resort was firebombed by environmentalists who caused $12 million in damage. They were indicted for committing acts of terrorism because after all, they were trying to intimidate the owners of the resort and coerce them into following their demands. They came on the radio with a statement claiming that they would be back if the resort did not stop trespassing into the wild. This is not an isolated incident either. There are growing numbers of cases involving this new “ecoterrorism.”

Timothy Ball, a Canadian scientist who obtained a doctorate in climatology from the University of London, is also a victim of radical environmentalism. He was one of Canada’s first PhD’s in climatology and has been studying it for over 30 years. After his February 5, 2007 article, Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts? was posted by the Drudge Report, he received multiple death threats. The article stated that global warming is not caused by humans. He then went on to say that he and many other renowned scientists (like Richard Lindzen) are being ignored despite their many decades of research and expertise.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

So, people are firebombing buildings and threatening doctors. Does this sound eerily familiar? It sure seems like religious fanaticism to me.

Who are these people trying to push the global warming agenda into mainstream politics and propose laws that will affect our daily lives? Well, one of the influences at the United Nations was Maurice Strong, a senior advisor to Kofi Annan. He is actually a Canadian-born businessman who has made his money in the energy industry. But at the U.N. Earth Summit in 1992 he said the following:

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”

Think about that for a second. This is a man who was advising the Secretary General of the United Nations. He is publicly advocating for the collapse of our modern civilizations. Fortunately, he is not currently involved with the U.N. because of an investigation into his ties to the Iraqi Oil for Food scandal.

People who have this type of mentality are not that uncommon. They blame industrialized nations for all the worlds social and economic problems already, so why not blame them for global warming too? The politicians of these accused countries aren’t going to argue because it allows them to pass more laws and regulations, more taxes, and ultimately give them more power and control over their citizens. We are blamed for causing climate change because humans are the only things that can be taxed. Most politicians see this environmental alarmism as an opportunity to grab more power and influence over a largely uninformed population. And all of it is under the guise of saving the planet. How noble.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” – Carl Sagan

Saving the Future

We are now at a point when politicians are working together with scientists, environmentalists, and businesses to come up with “solutions” to our current “crisis”. They are sending billions of dollars of our tax money to research projects that are searching for alternatives to fossil fuels. The claim of the man-made global warming proponents is that we are creating too much carbon, and it is because of our oil consumption. Unfortunately, these people don’t understand the ratio of carbon to hydrogen in oil or the ratios in past methods of energy use. But even beyond that, the call for change in the energy industry is too late. They’re already making the changes – they have been for many years.

Why are they blaming oil companies? Because they make a lot of money. With our current system of politics, class-warfare is very prevalent among our citizens. It’s easy to hate the rich and that makes it easier for politicians to tax them, along with the fact that they are a very small minority. So, they can create new taxes and pass new regulations that make it harder for these companies to comply. But these oil companies provide things that we need. I can’t say that about this new trend we are witnessing.

The newest and probably most ridiculous phenomenon is the “carbon offset” that is being promoted by Al Gore. Apparently you can offset the amount of carbon you use by purchasing credits from a company that will plant trees for you - a company in which the chairman and founding partner happens to be Al Gore (also the inventor of the internet). But wait, there’s another company who just happens to have one of Gore’s friends on its board of directors.

“Strong is on the board of directors of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Wikipedia-described as "the world's first and North America's only legally binding greenhouse gas emission registry reduction system for emission sources and offset projects in North America and Brazil.” – Judi McLeod, Creators of Carbon Credit Scheme Cashing in on it
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover031307.htm

“Strong” happens to be Maurice Strong. Remember him? He and Gore go way back, as the article illustrates very nicely. It seems that Strong is more than just an environmentalist and former advisor to Kofi Annan, he’s also an inside trader.

So what exactly are these carbon offsets that Gore is selling and how do they work? Basically, you spend your money on a credit that allows you to continue using the current amount of “damaging pollution” in your daily routine. You do not reduce your consumption or pledge to do so in the future. When you purchase this credit, a tree may be planted in your honor - or multiple trees - depending on how much money you waste. So, are these trees that didn’t exist before? No, they are just moved from a tree farm and replanted in a new location. Doesn’t sound like much of an offset now, does it?

Ideas like this are the result of irrational behavior in the light of an oncoming doom that is supposedly right around the corner, and has been for a few decades. People come up with ideas like sucking carbon dioxide right out of the air, evaporating large amounts of ocean water, or practicing “green” sex in order to save the planet. If these people spent as much time properly educating themselves as they do coming up with these absurd “solutions” to global warming, we may actually make some real progress in our civilization. But like I said, it’s not about learning the facts. It’s all about having faith in the information they’ve been given.

Final Thoughts

I’ve provided a lot of information here, so let’s recap what we already know.

We know that for about the last 40 million years, the Earth has been experiencing one of its coldest climates in over 600 million years, and there have only been three such periods of similar climate in that time. Neither of these other two periods lasted much longer than our current one. We also know that it is possible to have a cold climate and extremely high levels of carbon dioxide at the same time.

We know that humans did not exist before our current ice age, so the Earth has the ability to change its climate without our influence. In addition, scientists do not know the causes of these climate changes, but there are multitudes of assumptions that try to explain them, including the Milankovitch Cycle.

We know of a few warming trends over the last 15,000 years in which humans seemed to prosper rather than die from catastrophes of epic proportions. We also know that the rise of our oceans has leveled off over the last 8,000 years.

I have explained the myth about decreased polar bear populations and the fact that we know very little about the history of our ozone layer. I have also given examples of what happens when people disagree with man-made global warming proponents and that it may be tied to their view of it as a religion, as explained by Michael Crichton.

We know that 30 years ago we heard the same doomsday predictions about global cooling, and that government will support any idea that will give them more power and control over their people and that the practices of some of the key advocates pushing this global warming agenda are shady.

Now, knowing all of these things, is it safe to say that a serious debate about the science of climate change needs to happen? Throw out your political leanings and what you think you know about the Earth’s environment and look at the facts. Look at the vastness of the world and understand that there are so many things of which you know nothing. Maintaining a balance in nature is not as easy as saying you are going to stop using oil or you’re going to change your light bulbs. We all need to try to understand our environment and be aware of the possibility that we may never know everything about it, especially how to control it.

Furthermore, we need to understand that predictions of the future are not absolute. There have been numerous predictions by scientists and experts in other fields over the last few decades that have been completely wrong. This is because the future is very uncertain, as is plainly understood by most rational people. Here’s a list of things we would need to know in order to accurately predict a future climate change:

1. Our orbital position in the solar system since the Earth’s creation. (eccentricity, orbital inclination, and position of other planets)
2. The Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity) throughout every point along its orbit.
3. The Sun’s solar output throughout time including a timeline of its sun spot cycles.
4. The positioning of our tectonic plates since the creation of our planet.
5. The direction and strength of ocean currents and the temperatures of the oceans and currents.
6. The changes in the amount of exposed surface land.
7. Volcanic activity throughout time.
8. Dates and effects from the impacts of meteorites.
9. The amount of radiation absorbed by our atmosphere and the amount reflected.
10. The make-up of our total atmospheric content and its changes over time.
11. The total amount of annual global precipitation.
12. Upper and lower-level atmospheric wind speeds and directions.
13. The total amount of plant and animal life on land and in the seas.
14. The total human population.

These are just some of the things that are important. I’m not a climatologist, so there may be many more, but the point remains: You must know all of this information – past, present, and future projections - in order to accurately perform an experiment, let alone prove a theory. You would need to overlay all of this information onto the next, piece by piece, to truly have an understanding of what has already happened. Once an experiment has been conducted (and none have yet to be performed) you can then present a theory based on your findings. Even then, your prediction could be wrong.

So how can there be so many people claiming that they know what we should expect in the future? Are there really this many scientists, politicians, and environmentalists that know all of this information? And where did they get it from, because much of it doesn’t exist? A large part of our history is speculation and assumptions based on ice cores, fossils, and playing in dirt. We don’t have records of satellite imagery, barometric pressure, thermometer readings, or wind directions from millions of years ago. Why do we have so many people out there pretending to know it all? Why are there so many people out there who blindly accept their claims?

“The improver of natural science absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties: blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

I don’t have all the answers – nobody does. It’s time to start thinking for yourself instead of believing what you’re told just because it comes from a position of authority. Science and academics in general, is all about being skeptical and questioning the consensus. It’s about trying to find truth within the information we obtain. The ones who are promoting the idea of man-made global warming are the ones trying to prevent the skeptics from speaking up and challenging their consensus. Don’t you find it odd that these scientists are trying to deny other people from performing a task that is vital to their profession? The scientific debate about global warming that needs to take place is what makes science what it is.

We know the Earth has gotten warmer in recent years. It’s time for a little more diligence with our research in finding out why.

“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” - Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883