Don't freeze out warm reality

How cold is it?

Cold enough to make some people believe that global warming is a hoax. But the recent drop in temperatures doesn't justify dropping concerns about climate change.

Yes, it's been remarkably cold around here -- and beyond -- over the last week or so. Yes, the average global temperature over the last decade is virtually unchanged.

However, just as a hot spell doesn't prove global warming, a cold spell doesn't disprove it. And while temperatures didn't rise in the last 10 years, they rose significantly in the previous 100.

Don't take our word for it. Look at how much Arctic ice has been lost in recent decades. Listen to the experts, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt, who point out that the long-term warming trend naturally includes some short-term cold snaps. As he told The Associated Press this week, despite the relative stability of temperatures since 2000, 2009 still ranks among the 10 warmest years on Earth since 1880.

A strong consensus of scientists has concluded that a steep increase in greenhouse gas emissions significantly contributed to the warming of our planet over the last century. An emerging consensus of political leaders across the world is trying to address this issue by reducing those emissions.

Yet there's also an emerging public backlash against those efforts (see letters on this page). A growing number of Americans dispute the idea of man-made global warming. Some even charge that the issue is a scam aimed at boosting big government.

Scheduling that United Nations climate change summit in chilly Scandinavia last month further fueled the doubters' fire. The sight of President Obama returning from the Copenhagen conference to a frozen Washington certainly didn't boost the public-relations case for warming.

And persisting challenges raised by some scientists against the theory of mankind's climate change role should not be arbitrarily dismissed.

Nor should we impose such severe emissions-reducing measures that we wreck the chances for economic recovery.

But global warming over the last century is real. So are the perils warming brings, including rising sea levels -- a particularly ominous trend along our coast.

Short-term weather variations won't erase those dangers or the prevailing scientific view that carbon emissions have been a major factor driving temperatures upward. And the benefits of reducing our dependence on fossil fuels would not be confined to reducing carbon emissions.

So bundle up to get through this wintry weather.

Just don't let a few weeks of frosty windshields convince you that global warming is a ruse.