RIVER CITY JOURNAL: SCIENCE OFFERS ANSWERS TO ALL THE BIG MYSTERIES

Unfortunately, science practitioners don't always agree, so you have to make your own assumptions from time to time. How else can you explain Tupperware and Madonna in the same breath?

Sometimes you read news that makes you stop and think. Take the report on global warming that came out this week. Oh, you were still under the impression that the planet is headed for another ice age as reported by scientists a few years ago?

Scratch that. The latest scientific observations (and clearly a different bunch of scientists) contend that 1995 was the warmest year on record. Keep in mind that the British, who issued this report, have been keeping global temperature records only since 1856. That is an important "only," because Earth is a tad older than that.

If you accept the notion that this old orb started as a mass of gases and volatile eruptions of core magma, you would also wonder if the global temperatures in those startup days weren't just a teensy-weensy higher than the 58.72 degrees Fahrenheit reported by the Brits for 1995. By the way, the previous record among British recordkeepers was 1990's 58.65 degrees. Can you say "seven-hundredths of a degree"?

Here's something interesting: American scientists keep their own set of records (will we ever get over that revolution business?), but have been doing so only since 1866. This date indicates the U.S. global-temperature team was probably set up by Congress to give gainful employment to jobless veterans looking for work after the Civil War. That's just speculation, of course.

But the interesting thing about the American temperatures is that they are different from the British temperatures. Imagine that. According to the U.S. thermometer watchers, the average global temperature in 1995 was 59.7 degrees, slightly higher than 1990. Again, it would be nice if Adam or Moses or somebody had been thoughtful enough to chisel some weather data into a stone for comparative purposes.

Do you suppose the increase in global temperatures (if either set of figures can be trusted, and there is obvious reason for skepticism) is important to know? Will you change your life in 1996 knowing that if you could stand on every spot on Earth at the same time all year long you would probably need a sweater?

There are plenty of post-World War II adults who would point fingers at the atomic bomb as the reason for a warming planet. These same folks, of course, blame the A-bomb for just about every noticeable change that has occurred since 1945.

But wait a minute. They may be right. Look how tall Americans have grown compared with their forbears who populated this country prior to WWII. All those flyaway atoms surely landed somewhere.

And remember when it became unsafe to make snow ice cream? Yep, it was about the time America learned that A-bombs caused two-headed sheep and turnips that looked like Omar Bradley.

It wasn't long after the A-bomb that rock 'n' roll came along. Exactly how much scientific proof do you need that the A-bomb is the reason for global warming?

Just look at everything that's happened since the A-bomb. Make your own list: Tupperware, Edsels, fat-free foods, sugarless candy, Madonna, hippies, yuppies, O.J. Simpson, jogging, declining church attendance, Ross Perot, microwave ovens, car phones, Charles and Di, Liberace, indoor football stadiums, baseball strikes, Fabio, camcorders, bungee-jumping, the rise and fall of the Soviet empire, Trivial Pursuit, "America's Most Wanted," James Bond movies, talk radio, talk shows on TV, cilantro, jicama, Boy George, the Internet, lead-free gasoline.

Does anyone believe all these things happened by sheer coincidence?

Thank you, Great Britain, for boldly announcing the minuscule surge in global temperatures. Your warning hasn't gone unheeded. However, this news won't be the top story anywhere in the world.

Which is why columnists write.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.