Some of  our elected politicians are at it again, introducing legislation to regulate the emission of so called greenhouse gases. Not only is would this put a high burden of compliance cost on the American consumer, it would also serve to slow or even reverse the growth of the U.S. economy for something that has not even been proven to be a cause of global warming.

Those of us old enough to remember recall the dire predictions of the 1970's about global cooling.  The politicians sprang into action to save the world, passing new laws regulating aerosol emissions among other things. One result of these new regulations was the lowering in North America and Europe of the amount of aerosols and dust emitted into the air reflecting some of the Suns energy back into space. Less energy reflected back into space would result in what, more of the Suns energy being absorbed by the surface thus causing a warming trend. Pretty basic stuff.

One of the things that contribute to our warming and cooling cycles is activity on the Sun, sometimes it burns hotter or cooler for extended periods. Another would be the orbit of Earth around the Sun, it is not a perfect circle nor is it at a constant angle.

The earth has gone through periods of global warming and global cooling since the beginning of time. Other planets have done the same. Mars is currently going through a warming period, is man to blame for that? I really doubt our Mars rovers are to blame, much more likely is the activity of the Sun.

Most of the Earth has been warming during the 20th century, about 0.6 degrees celsius, with the notable exception of the Antarctic. The average temperature there has fallen by 0.7 degrees celsius per decade. Were man really the cause of global warming why would this be happening?

Of much more concern to global warming or cooling should be things that are out of our control, such as major volcanic eruptions. These have happened throughout history and ice core samples have shown the global cooling effect they can have for decades after the event.

The politicians are catering once again to the pseudoscience environmentalist crowd without thinking about the real cause of global warming and the role man has played. By trying to enact legislation to reduce the amount of CO2 by 2% per year they are putting an unneeded burden on industry and thus the American consumer with no proven benefit resulting from such a reduction.