"Yes Virginia, there is a ‘climate change'...the Earth is cooling off!" Panders to those perpetuating the fears of the naïve in the relentless jockeying for political power and/or financial gain.

The Harris article cites NOAA "global temperatures have cooled, not warmed sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean region." Glaciers suddenly appeared in the Pacific Ocean? To extrapolate global implications from a finite source is irresponsible of a climatologist and to insinuation a little unusually cold weather substantiate global cooling is reprehensible and trivializes impending extinction of polar bear and other wildlife.

An international study published in the Jan. 28 issue of Science found temperatures of North Atlantic Ocean water flowing north into the Arctic Ocean adjacent to Greenland are the warmest in 2,000 years and has amplified Arctic global warming. Water temperatures are 2.5 degrees warmer than during the Medieval Warm Period which heated the North Atlantic from roughly 900 to 1,300 AD and affected the Northern Europe and northern North America climate. With rapid warming of the Arctic and recent loss of Arctic sea ice from 1979 to 2009 (area larger than Alaska), the Arctic will become ice-free during the summers within the next several decades and displace helpless creatures that have long made these regions their habitat.

The Endangered Species Act designated 187,000 square miles along the north coast of Alaska a polar-bear protected zone. Alaska Gov. Parnell and backers challenged the designation to expedite oil and gas exploration and line their pockets with the hundreds of millions of exploration dollars.

MARK MEYE

Post Falls