Now that Anna Nicole Smith has been laid to rest, the media can return to its second most popular subject, global warming.
We are, in fact, being propelled into a global panic by forces the late Gov. Dixy Lee Ray scorned as environmental extremists, scare-mongering journalists, media-conscious scientists, visionary politicians, power hungry bureaucrats, regulate-to-defeat-the- competition big business and rapacious lawyers.
Yet, despite the fact she was a genuine scientist, a zoologist with the further experience and knowledge gained as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and assistant secretary of state in the U.S. Bureau of Oceans, she is never quoted in the daily flood of stories about the warming of the earth with catastrophic consequences.
Youd think Washington, at least, would be proud of her, but no, our movers and shakers swallowed the greenies claptrap hook, line and greenhouse gases. Gov. Christine Gregoire joined the governors of Oregon, California, Arizona and New Mexico to set goals for cracking down on the purported causes of global warming, industries and cars.
Reading the daily crop of stories about the danger of global warming is like reading the Brothers Grimm. People are frightened into thinking melting glaciers will cause the seas to rise and flood out the lands abutting them. Thats why sloughing off of Englands clay cliffs by sea surges is being blamed on global warming, even though tales of houses and lighthouses collapsing into the sea date back to the early 19th century.
Dixy, in her books, Trashing the Planet and Environmental Overkill, wrote that for every reputable scientist with a new theory on why global warming is caused by industrialization, theres another saying thats a lie and will cost billions of dollars annually attempting correction. Sadly, the deniers are finding it harder to get into print.
The global warning alarmists say the level of greenhouse gases is getting higher while the ozone layer grows thinner. They blame it on burning of fossil fuels in cars and industry and want to reduce both, chiefly in the U.S., which as the richest nation has the most of those offenders.
The deniers, including Dixy, say humans do contribute to global warming but the earth warms and cools alternately due more to natural causes. One cause of warming is increased volcanic eruptions. History tells the tale. When the Vikings discovered Greenland, it was green. Now its glacial ice.
Carbon dioxides arent nearly the villain that the alarmists claim, says Dixy. Water creates more carbon dioxide than anything else. Carbon dioxide released from the ocean bottom in burps has been shown to be responsible for extensive fish kills.
Weather worriers would do better, she said, to study the phenomenon of El Nino, which we know well here. El Nino is a sudden warming of the waters of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, occurring about every seven to 11 years and producing unusual weather. The other phenomenon is La Nina, a cooling of the surface ocean waters.
Why, asks Dixy, are we not pursuing a study of the cause and effects of E1 Nino and La Nina as vigorously as we are looking at carbon dioxide? Should we worry about global warming? Best that we clear away some of the real uncertainties before we devote significant resource to a phenomenon that may exist only in computer simulations.
She said that in 1993. That year she was honored by the Legislature for exposing the myths of doom and gloom propelled by the distortions and exaggerations of environmental alarmism, such as global warming. What happened?

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA, 98340.