“During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. “

“Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Seemed like a fairly cautious global cooling article. It's possible, too, that the author quoted the source's cooling scenarios without giving as much space to the warming ones he MIGHT have had, too.

And, the source may well have believed in the advent of global cooling.

Of more concern is that there has been 27 years of more sophisticated measurements. Twenty-seven years ago we were braced for the communist onslaught through Southeast Asia, the USSR irredeemably evil, and so on. A lot of people have been able to change their minds about a lot of things in those 27 years based upon changing situations, additional data.

At one time Newton had all the answers needed regarding planetary motion. At one time Einstein had corrected the infinitesmal problems Newton had. People changed their minds, and added the Theory of Relativity to their calculations.

Things change as the result of more data. People's minds should, too. Don't know that it's fair to haul out a 27 year old Newsweek article as an example of science being wrong. Especially as cautious an article as this seems to have been.

One thing hasn't changed since then. US dependence upon Middle Eastern oil. (And ANWR wouldn't solve that problem for very long, if at all.)

Arf