Global Warming Religion: The "Biggest Threat to Freedom"; and Global Cooling Gets Some Respect

Given the extremely cold winter this year in many parts of the world, it probably makes sense that global cooling is getting an increasing amount of attention, see the Google Trends chart above of search volume for the term "global cooling" over the last 12 months, and note the recent spike in February. At the same time, note the significant decline in search volume for the term "global warming" in the bottom chart above.

From yesterday's IBD editorial:

1. According to the Canadian Ice service, this Arctic winter has been so severe that the continent's allegedly vanishing ice is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker than it was at this time a year ago.

2. Recent satellite images show the polar ice cap is at near-normal coverage levels, according to Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with NASA.

3. This winter has been particularly severe. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reports that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. The average temperature in January "was 0.3 (degrees) F cooler than the 1901-2000 average," the NCDC says.

4. Ontario and Quebec have experienced major snow and ice storms. In the first two weeks of February, as Canada's National Post reports, Toronto got 79 centimeters of snow, "smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950."

President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic (who will speak today at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in NYC) sees an eerie similarity between communism and what he calls the global warming "religion." "As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning."

Note: The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change is the "first major international conference to focus on issues and questions not answered by advocates of the theory of man-made global warming. Hundreds of scientists, economists, and public policy experts from around the world will gather on March 2-4, 2008, at the Marriott New York Marquis Hotel to call attention to widespread dissent in the scientific community to the alleged “consensus” that the modern warming is primarily man-made and is a crisis."

Al Gore was offered an opportunity to address this conference, and although his usual $200,000 speaking fee and expenses were met, he declined.