Posted February 10, 2007: Even Ozarker common sense can become befuddled sometimes, particularly when the mind is plummeted with conflicting facts, or so-called facts such as those indicated in the following head-lines I noted this morning: 1. TED TURNER: Global Warming is 'single greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced...'
2. GORE: 'Never before has all of civilization been threatened...'
3. NORTH MICHIGAN EXPERIENCING AMONG TOP 10 COLDEST STARTS TO FEB -- IN LAST 100 YEARS...
5. Thick Ice Forces Emergency relief for Sweden's starving reindeer...

Mr. Turner recommended that no new coal-fired power plants ever be built in the US. Is it only coincidental that this billionaire is the major investor in DT Solar, a New Jersey company involved in large-scale solar power projects?

And what did Mr. Gore say on February 8 to an audience in Spain?

Emerging economies such as China are justified in holding back on fighting greenhouse gas emissions until richer polluters like the United States do more to solve the problem...

Mr. Gore advocates letting the lights go out for you and me so that this giant emerging economy of China that is already cleaning our clock can grow even richer and stronger. Hmm, the Ozarker common sense is wondering what happened to Mr. Gore's common sense. Wouldn't we expect more from the inventor of the Internet?

We are being bombarded with stories from the liberal media warning of an imminent doomsday because you and I are causing the earth to rapidly approach the heat of Hades.

Last week's release by the IPCC of the executive summary of their latest report has sparked even more scare-oriented propaganda. The United Nation's IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in this report that "it is almost certain... that humans are the cause for current global warming."

But the more I study this issue, the more scientists I find who disagree with the view that humans are the major cause of climate change and who, in fact, also disagree that we are currently undergoing any abnormal trend toward global warming. Even some of the scientists working with the IPCC on the research have objected to the summary report, stating that it is a political statement rather than a technical summary. In support of this, they voice their objection to the fact that the actual technical report has been withheld for at least an additional three months so that it can be "...edited to comply with the summary report..." See report.. (uhh, I thought the aim of a summary report was to present a summary of what is in the report, not the other way around.)

Ozarker common sense also makes it hard to worry about global warming when we are currently freezing our tails off. While we here in Ozark country are having trouble trying to stay warm, we get little comfort knowing it's a lot colder for our Northern neighbors.

Northern Michigan is experiencing among the top 10 starts for February in the last 100 years. For example, at Houghton Lake Michigan the average temperature for the first week of February is 5.2 degrees F whereas this year it has been -7.6^oF. The weather reports, if you can believe long-term climate forecasts a week ahead, are that the cold snap will continue. Come to think of it, if you can't believe weather reports a week ahead, how can you believe them 75 years ahead? Does this not also stretch our common sense when it comes to forecasts of dire consequential global warming?

Has anyone told the reindeer about global warming? Maybe our green environmental friends should turn their attention to the Arctic where the reindeer are starving because they cannot forage through the thick ice to get to their normal food source. The Swedish government is granting millions of dollars to the native reindeer herding people to provide food for these animals because of the unusually severe conditions.

It is because of conflicting observations like these that most Ozark people I know are intuitively skeptical and relatively immune to the brainwashing of the Gore scare-mongers. That makes me proud of the Ozarker common sense.

Now, using that same common sense, I realize that the industrial revolution that started a century and a half ago along with the ever-increasing human population has no doubt resulted in a huge increase of carbon from the earth back into the atmosphere. But the question is whether or not that increase is sufficient enough to overcome nature's inevitable direction and rate of climate change. The climate has been continually changing ever since God created the earth. Hot-house to cold-house to hot-house to ....., you get the idea. It was ever so. No one can question that global warming is occurring, the earth is in its normal cycle of recovery from the last ice-house age. But I think it is highly egotistical of the environmentalists to think that we measly men can have greater effect than the sun and other mighty forces of nature that God uses to control the world's climate.

Debate as to the extent of man's intervention in climate change continues to rage among the scientists. We lay-people can only listen to the arguments and use our own common sense in assessing the relative validities. Your common sense, and mine, are at least as good as that of the most vocal of the loud-mouths like Mr. Gore. The problem, however, is that those loud-mouths have the biggest vocal cords in the form of the print and television media and over-whelm the public with their one-sided message that would weaken this country's economy and hasten their desired trend toward one-world government.

But there does exist an opposing view among many scientists and it can be found if you dig deeply enough. For example, data presented by Prof. Mann has been the back-bone of the IPCC's claims even though a congressional investigation resulted in a report which found great fault with the Mann data. See reference

So as not to bore the casual reader with more of the facts of the matter, I have presented them in a separate web page.

If you would like to read more in support of questioning the validity of the IPCC claims, go to (November 2019 Update)see this webpage for one of the latest scientific findings disputing the IPCC Climate Models: Bombshell Claim: Scientists Find Man-made Climate Change Doesn't Exist In Practice

Ozarkcountrymand says, God Bless All