The issue of so-called global warming has flared up again in the news.  However, despite some scary sound bites, little information is being offered to back up the thesis that man is warming his planet.

A new study in "Science" magazine, according to co-author and research meteorologist Dian Gaffen, supports "the contention that the surface has been warming appreciably in the last 20 years versus the troposphere which does not show as much warming."  As reported by Reuters, John Christy, a professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a research contributor, observed: "The behavior of the surface temperatures and the atmosphere over the past 21 years is at odds with the theories that explain how human-induced climate changes should occur."  He added: "This suggests that what has happened in the past 21 years is not an example of human-induced climate change."

Meanwhile, much has been made of a new government report that says that 1999 was the fifth warmest year on record.  Not only does this claim fall prey to the surface-vs.-atmospheric temperature discrepancies, but also it crumbles before a new study in the academic journal "Nature."

As noted by "The Washington Times" recently, Henry N. Pollack of the University of Michigan and other researchers have measured the temperature of the earth at various depths, allowing them to more accurately measure temperature going back much farther than the 19th century.  Their findings indicate an average increase of 1.8 degrees since the 1500s.  "The Washington Times" editorial correctly points out: "Many scientists, in fact, believe that we are emerging from a period of abnormally cool worldwide temperatures-a 'Little Ice Age' that last from about the year 1400 to around 1850.  If so, the rise in temperature after 1850 would, in effect, be a return to equilibrium-or at least a more natural state-and have nothing whatever to do with man and his machines."

At the very least, the jury is still out on whether or not global warming is fact or fiction, and if it is fact, no one knows why it might be happening.  More realistically, the idea that global warming is happening as a result of man's activities amounts to nothing more than hyperbole from the environmental Left.

Obviously, it makes no sense to push ahead with costly regulations, taxes and international treaties based on the fringe theory of global warming.