We have been debunking environmental scaremongering, including global warming, in these pages for 19 years. Ten years ago we wrote "The Global Warming Emperor Has No Clothes" (issue #881). Hasn't the Earth warmed over that time period? No, it has cooled (see below).

Skepticism should come easily to the intellectually honest and rigorous; to say that the science is settled or that there is "consensus" on global warming is to reveal an ignorance of even the definition of science.

If you have any doubts there are doubts among scientists, please, spend some time researching the subject. You can start with www.icecap.us, www.globalwarmingskeptics.info, www.skepticsglobalwarming.com, www.globalwarminghysteria. com, and www.lomborg.com. We even recommend www.skepticalscience.com, which attempts to debunk the debunkers (but which, in our view, reinforces the grounds for reasonable skepticism). Consult the works of Richard Lindzen (MIT), William Gray (U of Colorado) and John Christy (U of Alabama). Recommended recent books would include The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud** And those who are too fearful to do so (Solomon); Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor (Spencer); Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1 ,500 Years (Avery, Singer); and The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About - Because They Helped Cause Them (Murray) .

Dennis Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute (that makes his analyses suspect, say the True Believers, but how are we supposed to take them seriously?). He writes that the Earth's warming since 1850 totals about 0.7 degrees, most of which occurred before 1940. The cause? A long, moderate 1500-year climate cycle first discovered in the Greenland ice cores in 1983. The cycle raises our temperature 1 to 3 degrees for centuries at a time, and then lowers them by the same amount. The ice cores show 600 of these 1500-year cycles, extending back at least one million years.

In other words, warming cycles are the norm. The Earth has had eight warming cycles since the last Ice Age, several of which were apparently warmer than today, based on the evidence of fossils and isotopes. They were all beneficial to life generally and human life specifically The Medieval Warming, for example, was known as "the little climate optimum" because human population increased along with longer, stable growing seasons. In contrast, during The Little Ice Age Europe experienced starvation and plague.

Is there a correlation between atmospheric C02 levels and global temperatures? Yes, higher temperatures come first, by about 800 years. But there is a 95% correlation between Earth's temperatures and sunspots, and the sunspot number has recently dropped to zero. The Earth has experienced no discernible temperature increase since 1998. Does this mean that Earth's temperatures will soon decline? History says yes.

And it's not just sunspots that predict global cooling, writes Avery The new Jason oceanographic satellite (run by NASA's JPL) shows that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (shifting Pacific Ocean current) has turned to its cool phase. We can expect lower global temperatures until 2030 or so.

How long will the global warming alarmists be able to sustain the public hysteria without strongly rising temperatures?

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