UP THE CREEK

by

Ken M. Blomberg

GLOBAL WARMING?

     Good grief! 

     A warmer than normal winter and the inevitable global warming hyperbole has begun.  Predictions of doom and gloom have environmentalists grinning from ear to ear when nobody’s looking.  Distorted scenarios are being presented to the public on a regular basis.

     Meanwhile, a state newspaper reported the respected scientific magazine Nature, revealed that from 1986 to 1999, air temperatures in Antarctica’s polar desert valleys have actually declined by almost one degree.  University scientists, trying to document global warming and the meltdown of the polar ice cap, actually found the ice sheet growing by 26.8 billion tons per year!  Researchers say “the thickening glaciers might be forecasting a return to the weather patterns of the “Little Ice Age” which occurred from 1650 to 1850.”

     Predictions by environmental extremists, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, continue to predict global flooding, melting ice packs, heat waves, droughts, wildfires, disease, and water shortages.  These claims are often based on computer modeling, which    many scientists call subject to limitations and erratic at best.  Forecasting weather, as we all know, is difficult, even from week to week.

     And with all due respect to some sources, claiming that two-thirds of the world’s population will face a water shortage in 2025 is simply misleading.  The facts support a world that will require only 22 percent of the readily accessible, annually renewed drinking water supply in 2025.  In reality, the problem will not be a shortage, but continue to be a lack of access.

     So, before we all throw away our long underwear and start building arks, we must remember, global warming is still just a theory.  Some of us believe the environment around us is improving, not getting worse.