By Joseph D’Aleo, Icecap for the Energy Tribune

With the prospects of climate change legislation that could cost American families up to $4,500/year by 2015 by some estimates or talk of using known technology to sequester carbon through well drilling, which Michel Economides (in Energy Tribune 2007) has estimated could cost up to $7.2 trillion or 60 times the current costs of drilling, the need to be certain we really have a problem becomes even more critical. I was asked by Michael to address the climate change issue to determine whether the earth was truly warming out of control, whether carbon dioxide was really to blame and if not what other factors might be important.

In this guest editorial for Energy Tribune, I addressed the issues of climate change and the possible causes. I talked about the problems with the earth’s surface data that is being ignored, made the case that greenhouse gases get a bum rap for what is really natural cyclical changes induced by cycles in the sun and oceans. I show how these cycles suggest cold and not warm was in our future. Before the next assessment, the world may be taking note of the cooling or the cessation of the warming.

Lost in all of this is the fact that we have been in a climate optimum the last 30 years with warmer temperatures, more rainfall, and increased CO2 that has enabled us to grow more food more places and consume less energy than we would have had the cold weather of the 1960s and 1970s persisted. Descending back into a little ice age has far greater negative consequences than a slow and relative minor warming. Crop failures and famines are more common due to dryness and cold and the world would consume more energy for heating. We may look back at the late 20th century and the early 21st century as the golden years.

Future generations will shake their heads at how we didn’t recognize a good thing when we had it and how science was hijacked by politics, environmentalism and greed. We would be better off spending all our dollars and efforts on maximizing energy sources, new and old than trying to eliminate a gas that does far more good than harm.

See the full story here.