Global warming or no global warming?

It seems as though there is STILL a debate going on about whether or not the planet is getting warmer and why.

It is SUMMER after all - it is supposed to be hot in our hemisphere, right? There are even people benefitting from the heat, such as a German farmer who stopped raising pigs to start producing solar energy. But as the heat related death toll rises in Europe, and morgues are overloaded in California, fossil-fuel proponents continue to perpetuate the grand debate, and brush off warming indicators as mere summertime anomolies.

According to an AP article, published yesterday in the NY Times, "Coal-burning utilities are contributing money to one of the few remaining climate scientists openly critical of the broad consensus that fossil fuel emissions are intensifying global warming... a Colorado utility organized a collection campaign for [critic, Patrick J. Michaels] last week and has raised at least $150,000 in pledges." The collection campaign reportedly included a letter that called for a response to counter "alarmist" viewpoints (ie. the Al Gore movie).

If coal and oil companies want to protect their interests, they should move on from the negative P.R. campaign designed to doubt the changes, and put more money into developing ways of adapting to them.

Photo from the NY Times (Monica Almeida). The caption: About 16,500 dairy cows have died, and many others are suffering, according to a state milk cooperative.