The Earth is getting warmer, but Alaba­ma's state climatologist says carbon fuels aren't to blame.

John Christy, who heads the Earth Sys­tem Science Center at the University of Alabama- Huntsville, told a group of civic and business leaders Tuesday that the Earth's warming is well within historical ranges.

He spoke at the Energy and Environ­ment Lecture sponsored by Auburn Mont­gomery and Alabama Power Co.

Carbon dioxide levels have increased 38 percent in the last 100 years, Christy said, leading to an increase in the average surface temperature of about 1.26°F. Even if carbon dioxide doubled, temperatures would increase only about 3.6°F, according to Christy.

Energy prices are going up. Oil has hit record highs, resulting in higher transportation costs. Food prices are increasing. It is also becoming more expensive to heat homes and drive the family vehicle. And Canada doesn't even have a carbon tax. Yet, environmentalists are calling for one all the same, saying it will be economically painless. This is nonsense. The world is not melting but our standard of living soon will be if global-warming alarmists have their way.

Until now Canada's two main political parties, the governing Conservatives and Opposition Liberals, had both publicly opposed a carbon tax. Over the weekend, Liberal leader Stephane Dion announced he now favours a national tax on energy to curb consumption.

The theory behind any tax intended to alter behaviour is that if you tax something, you will get less of it. Carbon taxes are meant to get Canadians to use less energy. In fact, all they will accomplish is to make Canadians pay more.

Although the world’s climate is on a warming trend, there is zero evidence that the rise in carbon dioxide levels has anthropogenic origins. For daring to say this I have been treated as if I have committed intellectual blasphemy.

In magazine articles and essays I have described in fairly considerable detail, with input from the scientist Martin Hertzberg, that you can account for the current warming by a number of well-known factors having to do with the elliptical course of the Earth in its relationship to the sun, the axis of the Earth in the current period, and possibly the influence of solar flares. There have been similar warming cycles in the past, such as the Medieval Warming Period, when the warming levels were considerably higher than they are now. 

General Electric has rightly staked a claim to be an environmental leader by selling wind turbines. Wal-Mart is going green by asking its suppliers to evaluate their emissions as they manufacture Wal-Mart products. Trading in carbon emissions can certainly be profitable: In a month of dismal financial news in the United States, Climate Exchange, which runs the Chicago Climate Exchange, saw its stock rise more than 20 percent.

"We believe that technology can help solve some of these clean energy issues, and that ultimately by doing so we can make money for our investors," Jeff Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric, told a conference in California this month. 

Stephen Power’s “EPA Says Carbon Caps Won’t Harm Economy Much,” in today’s Wall Street Journal, discusses Friday’s EPA report that the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill will not significantly harm the U.S. economy. I guess the truth of this depends on your definition of “significantly.”

I wonder if the EPA would consider the following (from the recent NAM/AACF report on the economic impact of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act) “significant.” Under the Lieberman-Warner bill:

• The U.S. would lose between 1.2 million and 1.8 million jobs by 2020, and as many as 4 million by 2030;
• Additional costs per household of $739 to $2,927 per year by 2020, increasing to $4,022-$6,752 per year by 2030; 

Like a mirage in the desert, climate change—the term that has replaced global warming—looks real, but disappears in shimmering rays when approached.

Of course there’s climate change. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Its history is about climate change. Such changes occur over centuries. They are not the stuff of the myths about “global warming” with tales of glaciers melting, oceans rising, and other melodramatic events that are not happening now and not likely to happen.

Most certainly, global warming does not cause the onset of an Ice Age as one recent Hollywood film depicted. That requires a suspension of logic that only the extremely stupid can achieve.

In a recent speech delivered in New York, meteorologist Coleman questioned the validity of alleged man-made global warming. He says that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that was formed in 1982 has since then claimed that uncontrollable global warming is going to melt the ice caps, drive species to extinction, and make the earth uninhabitable.

Coleman disagrees whole-heartedly with the touted effects of global warming on the environment. He contends that the "media has jumped onto the frenzy; every environmentalist on the planet is yelling it; people seem to have adopted it like a religion. But [global warming is] not happening, and it's very clear it's not happening."

During his speech, Coleman also questioned the validity of a so-called "carbon credit" system, in which consumers would offset CO2 emissions by paying a set fee that would allegedly be reinvested into environmentally safe technology.

Environmental worrywarts fretting about irresponsible humans burning up the planet have succeeded in fomenting needless hysteria over global warming.

It's time someone knocked these self-appointed doom-mongers off their shaky soapbox. And now it's happened.

We finally have a calm, sober study on the likely impact of climate change in every region of Canada.

Produced for Ottawa over several years by more than 140 independent experts, it was released without fanfare earlier this month.

Almost 450 pages long, its ponderous title, From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate, shouldn't put anyone off. It's a darned good read. 

The Cassandras of global warming blame President Bush for running a faith-based, not science-based, presidency. But it's Mr. Bush's successor who, by embracing the fight against global warming, will have to make the greatest leap of faith.

All three viable candidates for the presidency -- Sens. John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama -- have endorsed a so-called cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.

That isn't just a sharp turnabout from the current administration's policy; it also could herald the biggest new regulatory initiative to be adopted in the U.S. in decades.

The idea is a response to strong science showing carbon emissions contribute to the earth's warming. There's no science, however, that can accurately predict how much economic pain will be caused as a result of their proposals. An analysis published Friday by the Bush administration concluded that carbon emissions could be capped without significantly harming the nation's economic growth over the next two decades. But the report also found that such a step could lead to sharp increases in electricity and gasoline prices.

Britain's climate change emissions may be 12% higher than officially stated, according to a National Audit Office investigation which has strongly criticised the government for using two different carbon accounting systems. There is "insufficient consistency and coordination" in the government's approach, the NAO said.

Using one system, which the government presents to the UN and in public, Britain emitted 656m tonnes of CO2 in 2005, and claims an improvement on 1990 figures. However, the lesser-known but more accurate data in the government's national environmental accounts show emissions to be in the region of 733m tonnes in 2005, a NAO report says today.

"There are two different bases on which the government reports emissions: that required for the UN, and the environmental accounts prepared for the Office of National Statistics ... [which are] more comprehensive as they include aviation and shipping emissions. They present UK progress in reducing emissions in a markedly different light", says the report.