Scientist cites Mars melt as proof that global warming is solar, not man-made

According to the head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, global warming is not human induced, but rather part of a solar climate change. Astronomist Habibullo Abdussamatov explained, "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," citing evidence from NASA's missions to Mars.

Abdussamatov is not the only scientist to doubt man's role in climate change. According to a study published by the National Center for Policy Analysis global warming is part of a natural 1500 year cycle.  The authors of the study, S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery, assert every 1,500 years the world naturally heats and cools itself.

Still, most scientists in the field believe the evidence points to human causes. A chemist at the University of Chicago, refutes Singer and Avery's assertion about natural warming. Dr. David Archer offers rather that global warming is a result of human related activities and provides a counter point in Singer and Avery's article.

Peter Foukal, of Heliophysics, Inc. has reported in a September article in the Journal of Nature that the sun has had too little of an impact on the earth's climate to have increased the temperature of the Earth to its current levels.

An interactive report on global warming offered by the Guardian provides that scientists found a close correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations in the ice core of Antartica.

According to National Geographic, over the last century the average temperature has climbed about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 of a degree Celsius) around the world and as a result the Artic sea ice area of the Artic ice, which serves as the world's "air conditioner," has shrunk by 9 percent per decade since 1978.

A summary of "Climate Change 2007" by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for policy makers, states that most of global warming changes are due to human related actions. The study began in 2001 and was produced by 2500 scientific expert reviewers, 800 contributing authors and 450 lead authors from 130 countries.

At the request of Congress, the National Academies of Science published a report on climate change.  According to the report, the Academy had "High confidence' that [the] planet is its warmest in 400 years."

St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia where Habibullo Abdussamatov performed his research studying the impact of solar changes on the earth's climate.

The New York Times offers opinion pieces from contributors illustrating the world's view of climate change.  Reporting from Bangladesh, Australia, Alaska and Iceland, four reporters offer that the world is getting warmer with disastrous consequences.

Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, states that, although global warming is happening because of human actions, “going green” would only slightly slow down global warming. He believes that this is not enough reason to hurt our economy now by implementing environmentally friendly business restrictions, and we should instead learn to live with global warming.