To what extent has humankind’s fossil fuel burning and deforestation contributed to global warming? The answer has economic and political consequences.

Predicting the Earth’s long-term climate is one of the greatest challenges facing scientists today.

Until recently we had no measure with which to compare climate fluctuations through time. Today we do. Tree rings, lake sediment samples and the air bubbles in two-mile long ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica show that the earth atmosphere’s carbon dioxide has increased to the highest level in recorded history from 270 to 378 parts per million since pre-industrial times.

Venus, our closest neighboring planet, shows that high concentrations of carbon dioxide are harmful. Venus’ 96% carbon dioxide composition prevents heat from escaping and causes its surface temperature to be around 800º F (enough to melt iron).

The ice cores show that our stable climate the past 10,000 years is an anomaly. During the past 100,000 years the earth’s slow cooling has been punctuated by periods of sudden warming.

Four scientific centers NOAA, NASA, The World Meteorological Organization and the Hadley Climate Prediction Center all agree the earth’s average temperature has risen by over a full degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years. Eleven of the 12 warmest years on record have occurred since 1995.

The oceans are warmer and have risen an average of six inches, glaciers are retreating and disappearing and coral reefs are bleaching.

Antarctica’s ice shelves are fracturing, Siberia’s peat bogs and the Arctic’s permafrost are melting and the sea ice has thinned by 30%. Alaska and the Arctic’s average temperatures have increased 4°F the past 30 years. The three key planet warming gases—carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are up in the atmosphere and the ocean.

These are documented facts.

Two-thousand-five-hundred scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that as carbon dioxide rises so does the temperature and that human activity drove most of the warming in the past century.

The key questions are: "To what extent has humankind’s fossil fuel burning and deforestation contributed to global warming?" and "How long will it last?" Both answers have economic and political consequences.

The multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign by the powerful oil and coal interests, ("The Carbon Club") is not helping.

It makes sense not to overreact to global warming, but it also makes no sense to ignore it either. A prudent policy that limits deforestation stresses high mileage cars, energy efficient appliances, cheap solar energy and removing excess carbon from smokestacks is a WISE INSURANCE in uncertain times.