In stark contrast to our modern concern over global warming, the April 28 1975 edition of Newsweek featured an analysis regarding the threat of global cooling:

The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

Evidence used to support this survey included research by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which indicated

• A drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968
• Satellite photos indicating a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72 (observed by George Kukla of Columbia University)
• And a study released in March of 1975 by NOAA scientists, which noted that “the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972”

As ridiculous as many would assert claims of “global cooling” are in the world of today, there are nonetheless proponents of this, as well as those who think that factors outside of industrial emissions of CO2 gasses might be to blame for climate change on Earth; namely our sun.

On July 20, the New York Times reported “Among some global warming skeptics, there is speculation that the Sun may be on the verge of falling into an extended slumber similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, several sunspot-scarce decades during the 17th and 18th centuries that coincided with an extended chilly period.” In fact, many skeptics say it’s no coincidence that increases in sunspot activity and global temperatures on Earth are happening in accordance with one another. Some even warn that regulation of carbon emissions may have negative ramifications for our economy and energy infrastructure if proven wrong years from now, once dollars are poured into stopping a non-existent threat.

“Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity,” editors with E Magazine recently told The Christian Science Monitor. “And they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies to back up that claim.”

For instance, solar astronomer Peter Foukal has tracked sunspot activity dating back four centuries, and also concludes that such solar disturbances have little or no impact on global warming. “Nevertheless,” he adds, “most up-to-date climate models incorporate the effects of the sun’s variable degree of brightness into their overall calculations.” But does this indicate conclusively that the sun isn’t playing a key role in temperature changes? After all, NASA has observed an almost frighteningly “quiet” solar surface beginning in early 2009, which continues at present.

Though conclusive evidence that removes the sun from question regarding global warming has yet to be produced, elsewhere, other sources for potential warming have been examined. Such research may indicate that even if the sun isn’t the culprit, CO2 emissions may not be the key factor in climate change either, with fingers pointing at things like soot instead. Science reported earlier this month that satellite data shows the assumed cooling effect of aerosols in the atmosphere to be significantly less than previously estimated. “Unfortunately, the assumed greater cooling has been used in climate models for years. In such models, the global-mean warming is determined by the balance of the radiative forcings—warming by greenhouse gases balanced against cooling by aerosols. Since a greater cooling effect has been used in climate models, the result has been to credit CO2 with a larger warming effect than it really has,” Doug Hoffman writes at the website The Resilient Earth.

Whether or not CO2 is the culprit, we can’t ignore that fact that global climate changes of the same magnitude we are presently witnessing have occurred in the past. Nicholas Asheshov wrote in his article “Opportunity Knocks, Again, in the Andes” about a recent study titled Putting the Rise of the Inca within a Climatic and Land Management Context by Alex Chepstow-Lusty, an English paleo-biologist working for the French Institute of Andean Studies, in Lima. Chepstow-Lusty found evidence in core samples from glaciers and from the mud beneath lakes in the Andes, the Amazon and elsewhere, which “have built up a history of the world’s climate and the message is crystal clear. It is that changes have taken place in the past, during the six or seven thousand years of our agriculture-based civilizations, that are just as big as the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.” Interestingly enough, he cites these global changes as conducive to the rise of the Inca Empire, whose rise to power in the region coincided with the temperature increases.

If one cares to look, it appears that a wealth of information exists which seems to indicate that global warming—and cooling—have occurred in Earth’s past. But does that mean that current preoccupation with CO2 emissions, greenhouse gases, and other causes for climate change are the result of too much bias in research, or even worse, the product of negligence? Could it even be that “powers that be” influence what research takes place in order to fuel political conspiracies, regardless as to what kinds of evidence more balanced studies might provide?

“There doesn’t necessarily need to be a conspiracy,” writes Joanne Nova in her article “Climate Money”. “It doesn’t require any centrally coordinated deceit or covert instructions to operate. Instead it’s the lack of funding for the alternatives that leaves a vacuum and creates a systemic failure. The force of monopolistic funding works like a ratchet mechanism on science. Results can move in both directions, but the funding means that only results from one side of the equation get traction.“ Perhaps the evidence is out there, but rather than being purposely ignored, we haven’t gotten a clear view of it due to such disproportional allocation of available funds.

What if proponents of climate change, as we presently understand it, are wrong? If this were the case, will we be able to reconcile our present faults in understanding years on down the road… and perhaps more importantly, will we be able to afford to do so after pumping billions into research today; research that many in the scientific community still question?

For further reading, the link below provides a wealth of information that both support and challenge the debate over climate change:

Climate Debate Daily