Well I read the article. He is a meteorologist. MIT or not, that just makes him "Dr. Weather man". This guy hasn't done any of his own research. The article was a bunch of "what if's, and maybe it would be better if it was warmer", (WTF is that?). NOT very scientific. I try not to let politics cloud my opinion on this topic. IF global warming IS being accelerated from "greenhouse gasses" it will take the USA a long time to get corrective measures in place. How many more years before a country like China commits to the same program? I'm with Drew.
Like Joe mentions above, there was a time when the same "doom and gloom" media was reporting on "global cooling."
Global cooling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"This theory never had significant scientific support[citation needed], but gained temporary popular attention due to press reporting following a better understanding of ice age cycles and a temporary downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s."
The earth does more in one fart than we'll ever do to it.
Mount Pinatubo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The powerful eruption of such an enormous volume of lava and ash injected significant quantities of aerosols and dust into the stratosphere. Sulfur dioxide oxidised in the atmosphere to produce a haze of sulfuric acid droplets, which gradually spread throughout the stratosphere over the year following the eruption. The injection of aerosols into the stratosphere is thought to have been the largest since the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, with a total mass of SO2 of about 17 million tons being injected—the largest volume ever recorded by modern instruments (see chart and figure).
This very large stratospheric injection resulted in a reduction in the normal amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface by up to 5% (see figure). This led to a decrease in northern hemisphere average temperatures of 0.5–0.6 °C (0.9–1.1 °F), and a global fall of about 0.4 °C (0.7 °F). At the same time, the temperature in the stratosphere rose to several degrees higher than normal, due to absorption of radiation by the aerosols. The stratospheric cloud from the eruption persisted in the atmosphere for three years after the eruption.
The eruption had a significant effect on ozone levels in the atmosphere, causing a large increase in the destruction rate of ozone. Ozone levels at mid-latitudes reached their lowest recorded levels, while in the southern hemisphere winter of 1992, the ozone hole over Antarctica reached its largest ever size until then, with the fastest recorded ozone depletion rates. The eruption of Mount Hudson in Chile in August 1991 also contributed to southern hemisphere ozone destruction, with measurements showing a sharp decrease in ozone levels at the tropopause when the aerosol clouds from Pinatubo and Hudson arrived.
Another noticeable effect of the dust in the atmosphere was the appearance of lunar eclipses. Normally even at mid-eclipse, the moon is still visible although much dimmed, but in the year following the Pinatubo eruption, the moon was hardly visible at all during eclipses, due to much greater absorption of sunlight by dust in the atmosphere."
