Global Warming? B-r-r-r!

It has been reported that in South America, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed.

"A brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock.

Or try this, a few months ago, New Hampshire set a new snowfall record of 44.5 inches, breaking the 1876 record of 43 inches.

University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007 harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows.

Additionally the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years. On top of all of that, an "Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations" was sent by 100 scientists with the declaration, "don't fight, adapt."

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

On this last November 5th, in response to global warming skeptics Al Gore declared, “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat.” Perhaps, Mr. Gore, you forgot to read this US Senate Report authored by 400 prominent scientists.

Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. He states, "First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!"

Dr. Denis G. Rancourt, Professor of Physics and an Environmental Science researcher at the University of Ottawa, believes the global warming campaigns do a disservice to the environmental movement. "Promoting the global warming myth trains people to accept unverified, remote, and abstract dangers in the place of true problems that they can discover for themselves by becoming directly engaged in their workplace and by doing their own research and observations. It trains people to think lifestyle choices (in relation to CO2 emission) rather than to think activism in the sense of exerting an influence to change societal structures,"

398 scientists make similar statements

So tell me, Mr. Gore, is the world flat or is it round?