A new report in the prestigious British journal Nature shows how greenhouse gasses (normally associated with global warming) are now slated to cause global freezing as well.  This has led me to throw in the towel and admit, as liberals have been arguing for the past 25 years, that CO2 really is the main problem confronting humanity.  As Al Gore succinctly summed it up, 'global warming is more serious than terrorism.' After all, it causes so many calamitous things (whereas terrorism only kills people)...

John Roach reporting for National Geographic News  reports that the world's surface temperature has warmed 1ｰF (0.6ｰC) in the last 100 years. This is a calamity in and of itself to be sure.  The Nature report adds to this tragedy that in addition to warming, greenhouse gasses will cause the earth to cool at the same time — quite a trick. But this is just the beginning of the horrors of greenhouse gasses.   Let us take a quick look spanning the globe:

From Colorado, through National Geographic News we learn with remorse that swallows, are showing up to their U.S. breeding grounds about 12 days earlier than they were 30 years ago, according to Hector Galbraith at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Galbraith calls the results 'worrying.'

Miles away In the North Sea greenhouse gasses are busy destroying cold—water plankton and replacing them with — gasp —warm water plankton.  But the National Geographic News shows us that this is only the beginning.  The loss of specifically cold—water plankton causes decreases in the number of sand eels which causes many species of seabirds to fail to breed (out of empathy with the sand eels perhaps). The world is definitely falling apart.

But it gets more ominous still because the greenhouse gasses are not done.  AOL News reports that in northern Russia, frogs have been spotted more often on the tundra and some birds are not even bothering to migrate. Simultaneously over in the North Pole CO2 is causing polar ice to contract to its smallest size in at least a century.  But the situation is much graver still.

AOL News takes us to Norway where we learn that reindeer traditionally herded by Sami people —— who evidently are a type of people who live in Norway —— were vulnerable when winter snows did not fall as much as usual. The article quotes a Sami environmental activist named Prakhova as saying, "Snow is cold for us but for reindeer it is a soft winter bed.' She goes on, 'Lack of snow also makes it hard for reindeer to feed on lichen because the plants can get covered by sharp ice, which cuts their soft muzzles.'

As an American I am embarrassed that my country sent 100,000 troops overseas to defend freedom in Iraq while ignoring the dangers of greenhouse gasses as they kill cold—water plankton, injure reindeer noses, and spread frogs across the great Russian tundra. The temperature right now in Fairfax, Va (from where I write) is 41ｰF.  If we had concentrated our focus instead of Iraq on the CO2 terror it would be 40ｰF.

Interestingly, as it now turns out greenhouse gasses will cause cooling by the same mechanism as proposed in the movie hit of a summer ago, The Day After Tomorrow — a disruption in the conveyor—belt current that brings warm air northward.  At the time environmental activists and intellectual elitists, demonstrating their neutrality, acknowledged that even their best computer models found it unlikely for disruptions in the conveyor—belt currents to cause thousand foot tidal waves to crash into Manhattan, instantly freeze, and cause the entire population of the northeast to move to Mexico. But their models do now predict disruptions of cold—water plankton populations.  Which is I suppose, the perfect thing for big hearted liberals to worry about while the rest of us go about the business of fighting terrorism, spreading freedom, and making this planet safe for our children.

Jason Katz Cooper is a biologist in Northern Virginia.