Canadian Scientists Fear Global Cooling

Investor's Business Daily is reporting something we haven't seen much of in the media since the 1970s: concerns about global cooling. You read that correctly: cooling.

Kenneth Tapping, a researcher at Canada's National Research Council, wants to look for evidence of increased sunspot activity, according to IBD. "The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century."

A "solar hibernation" in the 17^th Century "corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715," IBD reported. "Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe."

Tapping's concerns fly in the face of the current media drumbeat about global warming, which would have Americans believe the Earth is on course for catastrophic climate changes unless the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) steps in to save the day.

The media have warned of impending climate changes for at least the last century. Most recently, global warming has been the, er, hot topic. But in the 1970s it was global cooling.

Could Tapping's concerns be the turning point in the media's environmentalist crusade? It's more likely the media will simply ignore - or maybe even viciously attack him - as a global warming "denier" or equally loaded buzz word commonly used to attack or discredit scientists and others who don't buy into the global warming catastrophe hype.