We have the great lakes that mitigate our weather and even though our winters can be tough, we always know that spring changes the weather and that the four seasons rarely challenge our way of life. So what is all the racket about climate change?

We can see weather changes but it is tough to measure climate change. Nonetheless, Al Gore, former American vice president, and James Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, both warn North America and the world that safe levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have already been exceeded. Hansen says, "We have reached the point of planetary emergency."

Not every scientist agrees with Gore and Hansen nor do many politicians want to face the problem of climate change that might have a more dramatic effect on weather than we can imagine. Critics of Gore and Hansen point out that climate change has been going on since the Little Ice Age 10,000 years ago. It not a new phenomenon. But what Gore and Hansen are saying is that the change is more dramatic and man-made because of a dramatic rise in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.

When the average Canadian sets out to check on that information and to find out what our political leaders think about climate change and how they are prepared to address climate change, he or she can only shake their head and wonder if anyone is home in Ottawa.

On the Internet, contributors to the climate change science argument are all over the place but at least they are understandable. Our politicians are not clear on the science or on the direction Canada should take. The Liberals 'carbon tax', the Western Climate Initiative of seven U.S. states and five provinces 'cap and trade' proposal and the Conservative 'climate change' policy are sometimes contradictory in their science and sound more like 'draconian' public policy without reducing CO2 emissions.

After reading all the proposals, Canadians will get a headache trying to figure out if there is a problem with climate change and if so how to deal with it. All of these proposals claim to make us safer from climate change and presumably weather change. If that is so, all of these folks are going to have to do a better job selling their message because right now it is more than confusing, it is downright incomprehensible.

But it is not Stephane Dion who needs to sell the carbon tax or the provinces who need to sell the cap and trade policy, it is Prime Minister Harper who needs to show Canadians what action he is prepared to take to meet the challenge of climate change provided of course that he believes the information environmental science is telling him. The Harper government position on climate change is the hardest to understand. It is difficult to comprehend the specifics of the Harper government's plan on intensity targets and the government's time table is too far into the future to meet the challenges of increased carbon emissions we are experiencing now.

No amount of bad mouthing Dion's Liberal carbon tax or the WCI cap and trade proposal will substitute for a real and understandable climate change policy by the Harper government that deals with the CO2 issue. The topic is tangible and many Canadians across the land are now involved in the issue and looking for a solution to rising carbon emissions in Canada.

While Michael Crichton novel State of Fear highlights climate change issues, the author's message, at the end of the book, lists a series of salient statements regarding climate change that are worth reading.

Crichton concludes that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing and human activity is the probable cause, but he warns against politicizing science on the issue of climate change. Crichton says that "we desperately need a nonpartisan blinded funding mechanism to conduct research to determine appropriate policy".

He is right.

The solution to climate change should be scientifically researched not politically driven!