Global warming hype is too much

It was comforting to read a fair and balanced published report in the Daily Herald on Nov. 28, "A Great Lakes warning," that did not give environmentalists the final say in whether it is urgent that a pact need be signed by eight state legislatures, including Illinois, and Congress to protect water levels in Lake Michigan and other Great Lakes.

In the article, climate change was credited with putting additional stress and pressure on the Great Lakes.

The hyperbole surrounding global warming has gotten out of hand. The American people have been led to believe that scientific consensus favors global warming. Why? Because scientists who challenge what they perceive as untruths are ridiculed and shunned by the mainstream media, while alarmist global warming views, such as those presented by Al Gore in his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," are promoted and held up as truth. How convenient that Gore is cashing in on a $6T energy business as a hands-on partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

The U.N. has entered the global warming fray big time. A dire warming forecast issued on Nov. 17 claimed that global warming was "unequivocal" and that "only urgent, global action would do." A more forceful directive was released on Nov. 27. This 44-page Human Development Report recommends that the U.S. should cough up big sums of money to "climate-proof" developing nations. In essence, the U.N. is blaming America and other wealthier nations for floods, droughts, famine, and poverty -- all happening in Third World countries and ascribed to global warming -- while overlooking why the world's poor are not able to build a better life. The reasons being: dictators, tyrants and corrupt governments have the power in Third World countries.

The mainstream media has chosen to ignore the coverage of John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, who in November spoke out against manmade global warming by calling it the "greatest scam in history," and Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute in Chicago, who said: "The warming has been only about 0.7 degrees C, spread over 150 years. Our ancestors lived through much more dramatic climate changes."

Consider 14,000 years ago when a glacier covered the area of the Great Lakes. The glacier slowly melted, moved toward Canada, and left behind large holes that filled with water to became the Great Lakes. It was 6,000 years ago that the Great Lakes reached their final shapes. Did cars or pollutants cause the glacier to melt and recede?

While it is fine to look favorably upon saving money and natural resources by being more responsive to the environment, drastic measures to save the planet out of fear for global warming should not prompt unwise actions. The earth has had natural cycles of warming and cooling over thousands of years. It will continue, for change is influenced by the sun. It is called Mother Nature. There is little man can do about climate change but to adapt, as man has done throughout the ages.

Nancy J. Thorner

Lake Bluff