WHAT WARMS THE EARTH AND MAKES IT LIVABLE?

How smart are you compared with an average ninth grader?

Three questions follow. Two were plucked from scholastic exams and one I just made up. See how you do.

1. Where do penguins live?

A. The Arctic Circle
B. Greenland
C. The North Pole
D. Antarctica

2. Which planet has a moon named Titan?

A. Saturn
B. Jupiter
C. Uranus
D. Earth

3. What warms the earth and makes it livable?

A. Factories
B. SUVs
C. Al Gore
D. The sun

Well, many (non-football playing) kids answered that penguins hang in Antarctica and Saturn has the Titan moon. The mainstream kids were right on both counts.

(The footballers thought Uranus was a body part: probably too much time spent watching Law & Order.)

But they all stumbled rather badly on Question 3. Based on all the media warnings about global warming, kids really went off the track. Many thought factories warmed Planet Earth. Others blamed it on SUVs. Some had seen An Inconvenient Truth and were sure that Al Gore was mainly responsible for making the earth livable.

They all forgot that in the second grade they were taught that the sun warms the earth.

You see, the scientists are all wrong about man being the cause of global warming. Just as all scientists have often been wrong about lots of other things.

All scientists once believed that the atom was the smallest physical substance. Then someone discovered neutrons, protons and electrons.

All scientists once claimed that "it's impossible for a heavier-than-air craft to fly." They insisted on that nonsense until the Wright Brothers took flight at Kitty Hawk.

All scientists once thought the earth was flat and that explorers who ventured too far out would fall off the edge.

All scientists once believed that the sun revolved around the earth.

All medical scientists once insisted that bathing weakened the body. (The British believed that until about 1950, which is why the Japanese thought the English to be barbarians.)

All medical scientists once believed that bleeding was the best treatment for "the bad blood that caused illness."

Let's forget that scientists can all be wrong for the moment and let's use a little logic.

Ask yourself a simple question:

Q. The earth would freeze over and all plant and animal life would disappear if which of the following happened?

A. Man-made pollution disappeared.
B. All factories and transportation shut down.
C. Al Gore retired.
D. The sun went out.

Even the scientists agree that the answer is "D."

Does it then not follow that tiny changes in the sun have much greater impact on the earth's temperature than all the catastrophic carbon man can generate?

Tiny changes in the sun's radiance have been happening since the dawn of time. When the sun burns hotter, the earth warms up. When the sun burns less brightly, the earth cools down. Man has very little to do with it.

If this is not true, how to explain the fact that Mars is warming right along with Earth? The hotter burning sun is warming both planets. The ice caps near Mars' south pole are melting away just like earth's glaciers.

Do you believe that there are men on Mars? Are they creating global warming on Mars?

Does Al Gore think so?

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