Those wacky environmentalists

The global warming crowd soldiers on despite growing evidence that forces bigger than human effort affect our climate. You know, like the Sun. Seems Old Sol may be taking a holiday, something that last occurred in the early 1800s (The "Year without a summer".) Investor's Business Daily has an editorial on the topic of the Maunder Minimum. (h/t Newmark's Door)

An interesting aspect of the solar activity study is that another Canadian scientist would have those researchers locked up for heresy against the Global Warming Lord and Savior, Al Gore. Of course, once his intemperate comments began circulating around the blogosphere and even the MSM, Dr. Suzuki, through a spokesperson said he didn't really mean it. Over at Dr. Suzuki's site, I can find no mention of this kerfuffle.

Meanwhile, at Depleted Cranium (another tip of the hat to Betsy's husband) there's a thoughtful piece that takes environmentalists to task for identifying problems but not offering reasonable solutions.

In our area, a group has taken up the cause of battling against the construction of a wind farm in what they call a pristine wilderness. The area, known as Shaffer Mountain offers fine hunting and fishing, but considering the land is owned by a coal company (which has already mined most of the coal), calling it "pristine" is a bit of a stretch. Leaders of this group reject the NIMBY (not in my back yard) label, but it seems to me that is exactly the point. Another wind farm project located just a few miles from the campus where I work has certainly changed the skyline (see the title banner at the top of this page), and a few folks who live on that isolated patch of mountainside have complained of noise from some of the turbines. In general, most folks around here view the turbines as attributes to the region. The development company Gamesa, based in Spain, has opened a huge factory in our county to manufacture the turbine blades. That's jobs folks.

One final note, ATTENTION Al Gore – it's freakin' 14° outside (an improvement over last night's -1°) – where's your global warming now?