My colleague at the Heartland Institute, James Taylor, was quoted recently in the Virginian Pilot newspaper  in Hampton Roads, Va. as a global-warming skeptic in an article otherwise devoted to alarms about the rise in global temperatures.

James, who testified last year at the local city council on the dangers of global warming alarmism, was so upset by the obvious bias in the article that he asked to be allowed to respond with an oped or a letter to the editor.

Kaiser Bottom-Fish Report editor John Kaiser, caught for this exclusive Energy Report interview as this year's PDAC was winding down, suggests that the bigger the event grows, the fewer the opportunities to pick up buzz during informal networking. Still, he did come away from the 2010 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada International Trade Show & Investors Exchange in Toronto last week with a bit of news that may be a game-changer in the rare earth elements space.

The Energy Report: You're a long-time participant in the annual PDAC convention. Everybody who wasn't able to be there wants to know about any compelling stories or particularly interesting tidbits that you learned this year, when the event brought people into Toronto from more than 100 countries around the world.

[Editor's note: This is the third article in a series by scientist/astronaut Walter Cunningham, who was the pilot of the Apollo 7 space mission and possesses a master's degree in physics. Cunningham has served on the Advisory Board for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  First Article  -  Second Article]

Without the greenhouse effect to keep our world warm, the planet would have an average temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius. Because we do have it, the temperature is a comfortable plus 15 degrees Celsius.

[Editor's note: This is the second article in a series by Walter Cunningham, pilot of the Apollo 7 space mission and holder of a master's degree in physics. Cunningham has served on the Advisory Board for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.   First Article   -   Third Article]

Claims of a scientific consensus regarding the causes, extent, or consequences of climate change are simply false. While climate scientists may agree that the Earth's temperature is always changing, there is tremendous disagreement and debate over whether humans are responsible for those changes.