The real cure for global warming VIN SUPRYNOWICZ MORE COLUMNS By VIN SUPRYNOWICZ

There are some who, lacking the ecstatic thrill of any other faith-based religion, wish to believe that the Earth is in the early stages of an unprecedented climatic change which will see temperatures soar, the polar ice caps melt, rising sea levels flood our coastal cities -- general devastation on the biblical model -- all because we insist on driving petroleum-fueled private automobiles and using electricity generated by burning coal.

Burning that stuff releases into the atmosphere large amounts of carbon dioxide, you see, a "greenhouse gas" that contributes to the ongoing warming of the planet.

Now, this is almost entirely fantastic nonsense. The planet is currently warming at a rate of perhaps one degree a century, part of an ongoing cycle of global warming and cooling which (ice cores and other fossil records tell us) has been ongoing for millions of years. This is caused not primarily by CO? levels -- changes in atmospheric CO? loading actually trail temperature shifts by decades or even centuries -- but rather by fluctuating solar activity. Even if CO? were a factor, most of the CO? in the atmosphere comes from volcanoes and the natural processes of the oceans, not from man-made sources.

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