GLOBAL WARMING - FOR GOOD OR ILL?

There seems to be a general consensus in the scientific community that the world is getting warmer. The controversy centers around the reason for the rise in global temperatures. Is it a man-made phenomenon, or not? The answer to that question, of course, has serious implications for future economic policy.

The legions of those who buy into the notion that global warming is a man-made phenomenon have issued their latest broadside....

The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.

The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics from around the world - and it is remarkably brief. In as little as 10 years, or even less, their report indicates, the point of no return with global warming may have been reached.

Unfortunately for them, there is a new report that says global warming has actually been beneficial to humankind...

The findings from a team of American climate experts suggest that were it not for greenhouse gases produced by humans, the world would be well on the way to a frozen Armageddon. Scientists have traditionally viewed the relative stability of the Earth's climate since the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago as being due to natural causes, but there is evidence that changes in solar radiation and greenhouse gas concentrations should have driven the Earth towards glacial conditions over the last few thousand years. What stopped it has been the activity of humans, both ancient and modern, argue the scientists.

As for me, I cannot believe we can come to a conclusion about climate change with reliable data that extends back only a century. Ask a climatologist why the ice ages happened. Ask him (or her) why they started and why they ended. They don't know. Is it the sun? Volcanic activity? Meteor strikes? Changes in the Earth's orbit? How so many reputable scientists can conclude definitively that global warming is caused by human activity, rather than any other cause, seems to me to be driven by political/economic ideology rather than cold, hard science.