Climate change debate not over

Mainstream media such as Der Spiegel, the Telegraph and the Economist have recently reported the unexpected stabilizing of global surface temperatures.

Oxford University geoscientist Myles Allen says the catastrophic climate estimates are “looking iffy.” Even former NASA scientist and outspoken climate change activist James Hansen has acknowledged a 10-year lull in rising temperatures. Carbon dioxide impact has not been as great as many scientists had predicted.

Only 11 years before the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created to sound the alarm about global warming, policy makers and mainstream scientists of 1977 feared we were entering a new ice age, warning of food shortages and erratic weather related to global cooling. Now, a graph based on the IPCC's computer modeling shows that the earth really isn't warming up as predicted.

Leeds University climate change professor Piers Forster notes, “Global surface temperatures have not risen in 15 years. They make the high estimates unlikely.” David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation says, “This changes everything. Global warming should no longer be the main determinant of economic or energy policy.”

Clearly, the debate over climate change is far from a settled issue.

James P. Hubert

Robins