An interesting editorial recently in Investor’s Business Daily addresses concerns among many scientists no about global warming – but global cooling.  These scientists of course don’t receive the press that Al Gore and the “man made climate change” groups do but their voice is starting to be heard.  They don’t necessarily dispute that man can have an effect on the climate but they do dispute the amount of effect and they caution that there may be other, greater forces at work – solar activity for one.   From the article:

“Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun’s magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.”

In doing a critical analysis of some of what these people are saying one can’t help but wonder if they just might be correct.  You also begin to realize that the “consensus” that Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) insist exists just may not be as strong as they would like people to believe.  There is a growing body of dissenters in the scientific community that are raising the flags and saying we may be all wrong.

Critical thinking dictates that these views be taken into account and that these theories be investigated. 

The editorial:  The Sun Also Sets