SuperFreakonomics

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, all commercial flights in the United States were grounded for three days. Using data from more than four thousand weather stations across the country, scientists found that the sudden absence of contrails accounted for a subsequent rise in ground temperature of nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1.1 degrees Ce

“The problem with solar cells is that they’re black, because they are designed to absorb light from the sun. But only about 12 percent gets turned into electricity, and the rest is reradiated as heat—which contributes to global warming.”

while the drumbeat of doom has grown louder over the past several years, the average global temperature during that time has in fact decreased.

“It is driven mostly by water-warming—literally, the thermal expansion of ocean water as it warms up.”

carbon dioxide level some 80 million years ago—back when our mammalian ancestors were evolving—was at least 1,000 parts per million. In

Not so many years ago, schoolchildren were taught that carbon dioxide is the naturally occurring lifeblood of plants, just as oxygen is ours. Today, children are more likely to think of carbon dioxide as a poison.

“Because carbon dioxide is not the major greenhouse gas. The major greenhouse gas is water vapor.”

A single volcanic eruption practically reversed, albeit temporarily, the cumulative global warming of the previous hundred years.

the agnostics grumble that human activity accounts for just 2 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions, with the remainder generated by natural processes like plant decay.