The most popular story on BBC News right now asks, “What Happened to Global Warming ?”

It’s a great question.  The story explains that the last decade has been pretty chilly:

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures… And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

People sure seem to have become wrapped-up in the idea that humans have dramatically changed the climate on the Earth (even though 98% of the Earth’s warmth comes from the Sun) and that the end of the world is nigh.

Even scientists who await more information (quite scientific of them, I might add) before fingering human-caused carbon dioxide release for any climate changes have faced castigation.  The common Man in common discussion hasn’t been allowed to even consider that the Earth and Sun have their own climate changes in mind, Humans be damned.

This stand against us being the cause for any climate changes, it turns out, might turn out to be George W. Bush’s greatest insight.

But there is a serious underlying problem.  Bush used this stance to maintain or even increase old fashioned industry.  Polluting industry.

Remember that word ?  Pollution is a very real problem that affects people and the planet.  There is no more scientific study needed: Pollution causes breathing problems in our kids, severely damages the planet, and kills wildlife.

It kills civilized life, too.

Should we be reducing CO2 ?  Of course, when it also involves particulate or other forms of pollution.  We should also remember the Apollo 13 mission, where excessive CO2 in itself became dangerous pollution.

Instead of a focused fight with this invisible gas molecule, we need to be fighting all pollution of our air, land, and water.  We need to fight old technologies that have more efficient, less polluting alternatives.

And we should be moving to non-polluting energy sources that already exist today like solar, geothermal, and wind  All we need is political will and the money that comes with it. 

And if you don’t think nuclear power pollutes, you have a lot of catching-up to do.  We don’t even know what to do with the poisonous waste products (other than make bombs with it), never mind the potential for wide-scale disasters like Three Mile Island, Japan’s let’s-mix-this-in-a-bucket incident, and Chernobyl.

With the real non-polluting technology solutions come a massive reduction in CO2 that will please the Sky is Falling climate crowd.

Talking about the weather is a captivating exercise that seems to have gone terribly awry.  Me, I just want to breathe fresh air, drink clean water, eat fish without mercury and trust the carrots grown in our soil.