We decided to follow our own advice and look into the effect that the burning fossil fuels would have upon the environment. The maritime industry is jumping the gun, we’ve noticed, so looking into the “Cui bono” aspects of global warming, therefore, here’s what we found so far:

1. James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environmental policy at the Heartland Institute, points out that a number of the alarmist statements in Al Gore’s book and in his movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, do not hold up to scientific scrutiny. He accuses Al Gore of distorting science and of ignoring data that defy his theory on alleged “global warming”.

2. “For example,” says Taylor, “Gore claims that Himalayan Glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society’s “Journal of Climate” reported, ‘Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame’.”

3. Gore claims that global warming is the cause of the shrinking snowcap of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Yet “Nature” magazine reports in is November 23, 2006 issue: “Although it’s tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain’s foothills is the more likely culprit. Without the forest’s humidity, previous moisture-laden winds blew dry. No longer replenished with water, the ice is evaporating in the strong equatorial sunshine.”

4. The African deserts are expanding due to global warming, warns Gore. Yet the September 6, 2002 edition of “New Scientist” says, “Africa’s deserts are in ‘spectacular’ retreat … making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa.”

5. Gore also claims Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet. Yet a 2005 study in the “Journal of Glaciology” says, “… the Greenland ice sheet is thinning and margins are growing inland, with a small overall mass gain.” James M. Taylor further reports, ” … in late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.”

6. As for Gore’s claim that the Antarctic sheet is melting due to global warming, the January 2002 issue of “Nature” magazine reported Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. Moreover, says Taylor, scientists reported in the 2006 journal “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences”, that ” … satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003″. Further, the U.N. Climate Change panel reported in February 2007 that, “Antarctica is unlikely to lose any ice mass during the remainder of the century.”

7. Along the same line, a new book entitled “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years”, points to more than 300 scientists who found evidence that, 1.) A natural moderate 1,500 year climate cyclical has produced a number of global warmings similar to what is purportedly happening today, and 2.) The modern “warming” is linked strongly to variations in the sun’s radiance.

8. Though scientific papers refuting many aspects of the man-made global warming theory are published in prestigious journals such as “Science, Nature and Geographical Review Letters”, they receive virtually no media attention. S. Fred Singer, a climate physicist who co-authored the book with Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Davis Avery, says, “We’ve had Greenhouse Theory with no evidence to support it – except for a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real world events.” Singer also observes, “Humans have known since the invention of the telescope that the earth’s climate variations were linked to the sunspot cycle, but we have not understood how. Recent events have demonstrated that more or fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth create more or fewer of the low, cooling clouds that deflect solar heat back into space – amplifying small variations in the intensity of the Sun.” Co-author Avery says, “Two thousands of published histories say that warm periods were good for people. It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine and plagues and diseases.”

9. The growing libraries of books and papers written by reputable scientists refuting much of the global warming hysteria includes “Shattering Consensus” by Patrick M. Michaels. It contains essays from various scientists, and include serious challenges to the claim that human endeavors and CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming.

10. Likewise Mr. Reid Bryson, founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, says that the temperature of the earth is increasing, but it has nothing to do with what man is doing. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he said.

11. “Carbon dioxide is 0.000383 of our atmosphere by volume,” said meteorologist Joseph D’Alea, the first director of meteorology at “The Weather Channel” and former chief of the American Meteorological Society’s Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecast. “Only 2.75 percent of atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic in origin. The amount we emit is said to be up from 1 percent a decade ago. Despite the increases in emissions,” he points out, “the rate of change of atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa remains the same as the long term average (plus 0.45 percent per year.) We are responsible for just 0.001 percent of this atmosphere,” insists D’Alea. “If the atmosphere was a 100-story building, our anthropogenic CO2 contribution today would be equivalent to the linoleum on the first floor.”

“Scientists whose evidence defies man-made global warming scenarios groan at the multi-billion dollar government projects for reducing CO2”, Mr. Taylor concluded. [More “multi-billion dollar government projects” … like the $ 1.1 trillion “defense-related” expenditures? We had a hunch that this global warming alert was just another way of cashing in on the “business of fear”.]