OT VERY hot here

I'm among the skeptics because no one has ever shown me what human influences caused previous ice ages (or re-warming thereafter).

One of the articles I read recently said something about a mini-ice age in the 1800s, which would explain why we are getting warmer than the paper records we have -- it is not that we are now abnormally warm, but that the prior century was abnormally cold and we're actually returning to normal.

I've also read (after wondering how the heck ancient peoples survived in places like Finland without modern stuff like PolarFleece and fiberglass insulation to prevent frostbite) that the winters in Northern Europe used to be warmer. Again, a change that occurred long before the Industrial Age spewed pollutants by the ton that could be accused of changing the climate.

I am not a scientist and I don't play one on TV :), but I do know enough about history to realize there are periodic climatological cycles, and always have been. We may be exacerbating the natural cycle, but we're not the primary cause.

You are absolutely right. In the UK, the tradition of a white Christmas was established by Charles Dickens, who wrote about them. Dickens had experienced something like 8 white Christmases by the time he was 12. There were also icefairs on the Thames when it froze over. The medieval warming period occurred around 700 AD and was the cause of the Vikings. Agriculture in Denmark flourished and there was a population explosion. The warlike Norsemen took to their boats, and established settlements all over Europe. There is no evidence we are exacerbating the natural cycle.

I defer to your expertise on that one. You're the scientist.

Not only that but there is absolutely NOTHING we, as humans, can do to "destroy" the earth. We can, and quite likely will, destroy what we think of as a suitable environment but we can't destroy the earth. Gaia can and will heal herself regardless of what we do to her. Short of our Sun going nova, the earth is here for a long, Long, LONG time to come. If you could ask, dinosaurs would tell you that the earth was destroyed because their environment was destroyed. The earth was in pretty bad shape for a number of years after that meteor hit the Yucatan but it wasn't destroyed. Gaia is pretty much a self healing entity and doesn't really give a tinker's dam about the life forms that currently inhabit her surface :-)! She'll be around long after we cease to exist. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

There was a very interesting program on one of the educational channels -- Discovery or Learning Channel or Science Channel -- all about the "mini Ice Age". It's pretty much been proven and is widely accepted by the climatologists, etc. today. IIRC, it was several hours long and was done in parts that were aired one right after the other. DH and I watched it and I recorded it and watched it again because I thought it was so interesting. CiaoMeow >^;;^<

PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at

You are absolutely right, Tia Mary. But populations and governments are influenced by the likes of Al Gore, and his "An Inconvenient Truth". As a consequence bad decisions, based on bad science, are costing nations hundreds of billions of dollars per year. In Ontario, here in Canada, we are going to spend some 60 billion dollars for nuclear power plants, with all the dangers of radioactive fission products. The UK, looks like it is heading in the same direction. We can go "green" by going poor, and reducing our standard of living, but, IMHO, our governments need to thoroughly examine, and re-examine, the bad science that claims mankind is causing the earth to heat up.

I'm so glad to know that DH & I aren't the only ones to *not* buy into this whole global warming BS (and Al Gore's /an inconvenient truth/).

I know that this is only a work of fiction, but it does throw some interesting theories into the air, but Michael Crichton's /State of Fear/ is a good read. It explains how the eco-terrorists (ELF and the like) are they themselves causing the situations that they are claiming are caused by global warming. And an Ed Begley Jr. type character gets eaten alive on a remote south pacific island by the very cannibals that he refuses to believe exist (that part gave me a chuckle - that character was sooooo annoying), and how an eco-terrorist's lawyer (who bought into the whole scheme) is slowly brought to see the light by a CIA (or some such) agent posing as an eco-professor who denies global warming & a wealthy philanthropist who

ARGHH - OUTLOOK, responsible for every "mal-ware" found on my Dad's machine;

They wore the skins of northern animals, which is very dense and insulating, of course, and at a lot of animal fat! Natural skins and fibers are *much* warmer than any synthetic made today, IMO. Plus, snow is a great insulator, too!

They probably did have a higher incidence of death due to exposure than we do now, but enough survived to keep the population going!

Joan

Ahhh, I wish my boss would see it that way.

Deb