The real climate catastrophe

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Our planet is again warming slightly, and the weather keeps taking unexpected turns. Many scientists say this is hardly unprecedented, cause for alarm, or proof that humans are now the dominant factor in climate change. Others disagree strongly, and point to every snowstorm, hurricane, deluge or drought as proof that urgent action is needed to avoid imminent climate catastrophe.

"Climate change is real," say the latter. True, but it's always been real.

Four times, mile-thick ice sheets smothered Europe and North America. A thousand years ago, Vikings raised crops and cattle in Greenland. Four centuries later, the Norsemen were frozen out by the Little Ice Age, and priests performed exorcisms on glaciers advancing toward Swiss villages. The globe warmed in 1850-1940, cooled for the next 35 years, then warmed slightly again.

Detroit experienced six snowstorms in April 1868, frosts in August 1869, a 98-degree heat wave in June 1874, and ice-free lakes in January 1877. Wisconsin's record high of 114 degrees in July 1936 was followed five years later by a record July low of 46. In 1980, five years after Newsweek's "new little ice age" cover story, Washington, D.C. endured 67 days above 90 degrees.

Studies by National Academy of Sciences, NOAA, Danish and other scientists raise additional inconvenient truths that contradict catastrophic climate change hypotheses, computer models and predictions. The "hockey stick" temperature graph (which claimed 1990-2000 was the hottest decade in 1,000 years) broke under scrutiny.

The Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years. Interior Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice mass, not losing it. Gulf Stream circulation has not slowed. And the U.S. is yet to be hit by a major hurricane in 2006.

Simply put, nothing suggests that predominantly human influences have suddenly supplanted the natural forces that clearly caused climate and weather cycles in past centuries. Yet, many still demand immediate action to prevent future climate change.

Few appreciate how costly such actions would be, especially for the world's poorest citizens.

According to government and private studies, the Kyoto Protocol would cost the U.S. up to $348 billion in 2012; force average American families to pay an extra $2,700 annually for energy and consumer goods; and destroy 1.3 million jobs in U.S. minority communities.

Globally, Kyoto carries a $1 trillion annual price tag in regulatory bills, higher energy costs and lost productivity, according to economist Bjorn Lomborg. That's several times what it would cost to provide the world with clean drinking water and sanitation -- which would prevent millions of deaths annually from intestinal diseases.