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Mars is also enjoying milder temperatures, based on data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor and the Odyssey missions. The carbon dioxide ice caps near the planet’s southern pole have been retreating for three consecutive summers.

Russian astronomist Habibullo Abdussamatov, who heads St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory, contends these findings are evidence that the sun is behind Earth’s current warming. His theory flies in the face of the most widely accepted hypothesis that excess greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide) emissions from human activity are the cause of the current warming trend.

Mr. Abdussamatov goes a step further, maintaining that solar irradiance began to decline in the 1990s, and will reach a minimum by about 2040. This diminishing effect will produce a steep cooling of the earth’s climate in about two decades.

Now that certainly contradicts all the increasingly dire warnings and predictions about the deadly consequences of an Earth that will continue to overheat unless and until human beings do something radical to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But why stop with curbing only carbon dioxide emissions? Why not insist on ridding ourselves of all pollutants? Ban emissions of lead, sulfur, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide and, of course, spent nuclear fuels. These latter pollutants are so immediately toxic that just a few grains of them could kill whole cities, yet the global nuclear power industry keeps churning out hundreds of barrels of the stuff annually.

So why have we singled out carbon dioxide for our particular wrath du jour? Do we become concerned about something only if we think it presents an imminent threat to our existence? Why do we allow other real problems to fester? My mother experienced the ill effects of smog back in the 1960s, when few others gave it a thought. Today asthmatics and those with allergies pay an ever-higher price in suffering (and medical bills) from non-carbon dioxide related pollution, but who’s calling for action on that?

Back in the lab, other scientists, of course, maintain that Mr. Abdussamatov’s theories are incorrect. They contend that past epochs of Earth’s warming can be explained by our planet’s wobbling on its axis and moving closer to the sun, and that such is the case with Mars now, because the Red Planet also tilts on its axis from time to time. These scientists also believe that it’s merely coincidence that both Mars and Earth are undergoing global warming at the same time.

Merely coincidence. Now that does strain credulity. In fact, this frenzy about greenhouse gas emissions resembles the entire rush to war with Iraq back in 2002-2003. Those who opposed invading Iraq were smeared as “soft on defense,” or “in league with the terrorists,” or some other such nonsense. These days, those who question the greenhouse gasses orthodoxy face the same kind of reprisals—they are “dupes of the oil companies” or are “in denial” about the problem.

Climate change is only too real. The critical question then becomes what is its actual origin, as opposed to popular beliefs about its causes. Only when we answer the cause question accurately can we then do anything truly beneficial about climate change. And yes, even if the source of global warming turns out to be solar emissions and not greenhouse gasses, we can still plan for the effects of rising temperatures and take steps to relocate populations if necessary.

Imagine what will transpire, however, if we pour enormous sums of money and energy into eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions yet the climate continues to heat up - or even reverses course and cools down, as Mr. Abdussamatov theorizes. Now that really would be a nightmare scenario – we will be strapped for resources to adapt to the actual changes and the reputation of climate science may never recover.

The stakes are high indeed.

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