Global warming: The controversy

Last year was the warmest year of this century based on land and sea-surface temperature data, according to NOAA scientists from the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. Not only that, the past decade has delivered nine of the 11 hottest years recorded this century. Proof that Global Warming is here? Should we shut down the energy industry, park the cars, and learn to walk again?

The evidence seems clear enough but the picture is still smoky. The crux of the matter is that many blame the warming on burning fossil fuels, creating a rapid rise in greenhouse gases over the past several years. Environmental groups are calling for reductions in carbon dioxide-the primary culprit-in developed nations. Consequences of increasing greenhouse gases, which we have been hearing for some time, include dangerous increases in global temperatures, melting of the world's glaciers, melting of the polar ice caps at an alarming rate, and resultant disastrous increases in sea level.