An article in Canada’s National Post summarized weather around the northern hemisphere and concluded that arctic ice is back, heavier than ever in some areas, and China is reeling from its worst winter in a century.

Of course, it doesn’t mean global warming is a non-entity, nor does it mean we’re headed for a mini ice-age. The author, Lorne Gunter, took a swipe at environmentalists this way:

“Ok, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Geeorgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter’s weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.”

The article goes on to claim that winds drive ocean currents northward from the tropics, and that has accounted for much of the recent polar ice melt.

To prove that point, Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona here in Tucson, is quoted as saying that current theories about polar ice-melt cooling the oceans and stopping the circulation of warm water to northern latitudes is wrong. Wind patterns determine the flow of warm ocean currents northward. There will be no mini Ice Age as has been predicted.

Then there’s the theory that the sun is entering a period of sunspot inactivity. The last time the sun was inactive for a long period of time, a five-century-long Ice Age gripped the earth, ending in 1850.

A Russian scientist, Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is quoted as saying man made climate change is a “drop in the bucket” compared to what could happen if sunspot inactivity continues. He advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”

Pick your poison, as we used to say. Nature is doing its thing, we’re doing ours, and who’s to know what’s really happening to our planet?