Here's something you don't see every day

...a climate scientist declaring that we're headed for a period of global cooling:

MOSCOW, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A Russian scientist predicts a period of global cooling in coming decades, followed by a warmer interval.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov expects a repeat of the period known as the Little Ice Age. During the 16th century, the Baltic Sea froze so hard that hotels were built on the ice for people crossing the sea in coaches.

The Little Ice Age is believed to have contributed to the end of the Norse colony in Greenland, which was founded during an interval of much warmer weather.

What's his recommendation?

"The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said. "The global temperature maximum has been reached on Earth, and Earth's global temperature will decline to a climatic minimum even without the Kyoto protocol."

What will the global warming johnnies say? He's a fringe character, out of the mainstream "concensus" of climate scientists, unimportant, dangerously naive. The cautionary principle demands that we do something about global warming.

There's more: another study in the Himalayas:

Researchers at Newcastle University looked at temperature trends in the western Himalaya over the past century.

They found warmer winters and cooler summers, combined with more snow and rainfall, could be causing some mountain glaciers to increase in size.

Look, I don't have a quarrel with claims that the average temperature of the globe has increased, though nothing I've seen claims that it's gone up by more than a single degree Celsius in a century. My quarrel is with those that vehemently assert that humans are the primary cause; and with that assertion comes the inevitable corollary, that since we caused the rise we should also do something to reverse it.

The believers in anthro-centric global warming will admit that sizeable climate variations have occured in the past when there was no possibility that humans could have caused them. But this time they have declared Ockham's Razor to be not sharp enough; that is, that the simplest explanation for the current climatic variation can't possibly be correct: the natural variations in climate that have occured throughout the history of this planet.

No, now it's our fault. The sun's role is insignificant. It doesn't matter that all weather and climate are determined by the engine of our atmosphere and oceans...which are heated by the sun.

It's hard to actually hear the people that are trying to collect data to support decision-making when people like former Vice President Gore and his ilk leap aboard this bandwagon of opportunity to assert that hurricanes will be more devastating from here on out because of global warming. How could a regular guy not believe the Vice President?

For me, it isn't a matter of belief. Belief breeds demagogues and I've had enough of those, thank you. If we can't spend $20 billion, say, on making a better determination of what's going on climate-wise, then we deserve what we do to ourselves.