Forget Global Warming: Welcome To The New Ice Age

by Lorne Gunter - Monday, February 25, 2008 - National Post

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own [Canadian] National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

Chicken little is alive and well and dressed in an Al Gore costume. There has been some global warming during the last 150 years since the end of the little ice age. It was never reasonable to assume it was caused by man. Then again the people who were promoting that didn't care whether man caused it or not. They wanted political power and would say anything that would allow them to persuade people to blame someone, in this case anyone who drove a car.

However the real requirement is that we get control of our energy resources and assure we have enough. Man needs energy. Man really needs energy if we are heading into another little ice age. We must start producing petroleum from whatever sources are available, especially if it is within our national borders so it does not damage our balance of trade. We also need to push for a reasonable nuclear energy program that builds environmentally safe nuclear plants based on the existing nuclear designs that have worked and proven themselves.

We cannot continue to allow environmental extremists to frighten people about energy production. Carbon dioxide is not the enemy. Expensive energy is the enemy.