Weather has been an important factor in battle since time immemorial. Right now Europe is suffering a record-setting heat wave and drought, with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in many places. People and animals, farmers' crops, and electric grids feeding air conditioners -- continent wide -- are feeling the strain.

What, you may be wondering, has this got to do with Military Opinion? The answer is: Plenty.

Work with me.

In any nation, energy drives the economy, and the economy drives the civilian standard of living. Energy and the economy also drive or hinder the effectiveness of the engines of war and defense. It's all connected, and these issues are very relevant to Americans at large, to our government and domestic politics, and also to our place in the world. The pivot around which all this swings is the hot topic of Global Warming.

The Bush administration has been perceived by some as weak or neglectful on fighting Global Warming on the home front. The US has been labeled by some as arrogant or provocative for refusing to sign an international treaty on steps to control Global Warming. But scientific research raises three very serious questions. These questions and their answers matter greatly, as I say, because they affect our country's available fossil-fuel "energy budget," which in turn affects the unemployment rate and the price of a gallon of gas, limits our strength to defend ourselves militarily, and shapes our foreign policy and our image and reputation to make friends or adversaries abroad. The three questions are:

1. Is Global Warming real?

2. Is it caused primarily by human activity?

3. And what should people do about it?

I'll address each question in turn. But first I need to make a distinction. There's a difference between Global Warming, which means we're supposedly doing things to make Planet Earth get hotter, and Air Quality, which can impair peoples' health through pollutants in the atmosphere. More on Air Quality later.

Weather data around the world does seem to suggest that temperatures are rising. Many experts blame this on human activity: An excess of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, emitted by machines and industries of all sorts -- from cars and buses to metal smelting plants -- causes the earth to trap and hold more of the sun's thermal output.

But less publicized is that while parts of Antarctica are warming, other parts are getting colder; as some big ice shelves melt and break up, others are at near-record extent even after losing chunks the size of small states. Astronomers know that the sun, which influences weather on earth and ocean circulation patterns, varies in brightness by a small but significant amount (maybe half a percent) over a number of different periods ranging from every five minutes to hundreds of years. It's probably because of this normal cyclical behavior of the sun that earth underwent the so-called "Little Ice Age," which ran for several centuries starting around 1300. Weather was very unstable and unusually cold. But the end of that big freeze, 1850ish, by definition was an era of global warming -- and this was before the advent of internal-combustion propulsion.

Volcanoes also impact worldwide climate. The explosion of Mount St. Helens alone threw more particulates and soot into the atmosphere than have human beings since the dawn of the industrial age. Makes you think, doesn't it?

Furthermore, carbon dioxide is not the most potent greenhouse gas. Methane, pound for pound, is twenty times as harmful in making our weather get hotter. And a major source of methane on earth is the digestive tracts of herbivores. Since herds of cattle and other beasts have grown along with human populations, cow farts might be a factor, not just cars.

Another insight comes again from astronomers. Mars, though very different from earth, also has a climate and seasons. This has been studied by telescopes and robotic orbiters and landers for several decades now. And the shrinking of the polar ice caps on Mars, whatever their exact composition, shows that for some 30 years, if not more, Mars has been undergoing its own version of global warming. This does seem to suggest the process traces back in part to fluctuations on the sun.

These points are controversial even within the scientific community. But the basic information is true and real. Hundreds of research papers -- each subjected to rigorous peer review before acceptance for publication -- support the belief that a substantial (though unknown) portion of Global Warming is due to natural solar and planetary processes, not human action.

Now, this isn't to say that Global Warming climate change is good. It's just to point out that many factors are contributing, and some of the most important ones are beyond the control of Americans in general, let alone the good people in the White House and the Congress. We each ought to think about this carefully, to take the wisest position possible on our country's energy policy and our approaches to foreign affairs.

I said I'd also talk about Air Pollution. This should be a subject of concern to all of us. One indicator of the extent of the problem is an unexplained, worldwide rise in the rate of asthma among children. It's bad in the Third World, and bad in American inner cities, but this explosion in asthma rates cuts across all regions and socio-economic groups. One possible explanation is that the atmosphere is getting too dirty.

If you're with me so far, you might be starting to think about the outbreak of pneumonia cases among our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. A plausible cause is impairment of their respiratory systems by continuing exposure to air so laced with abrasive particulates (read: sand and dust), along with near-choking vehicle and aircraft exhaust and fuel fumes -- not to mention burnt cordite. That, plus the stress of daily life in, let's face it, guerrilla war zones with no easy end in sight, can leave men and women in uniform vulnerable to lung infections. Add some local pathogens our soldiers and marines lack very much prior exposure to, and we have a sure recipe for grief. We need to find out what the real causes are, and quickly, because all through history disease has been a killer for troops in the field. We dare not slip backward on combat illness hazard-prevention, or else morale, retention, and enlistment rates will suffer from bad publicity on this subject alone. American national security would then suffer badly, too.

In conclusion, we as a country have to see the issue of Global Warming clearly as something very complicated -- yet we the people, as well as our media and our procedures of democracy, are not at their best at handling something nuanced and complex. We shouldn't jump on the UN's Kyoto Accords bandwagon just to be politically correct, when the measures in said treaty might be scientifically misguided. Our energy sufficiency as a world power, and our industrial production and cherished domestic mobility, must not be compromised by any panic or stampede to beat the heat on the Global Warming question. On the other hand, Air Quality is important to all of us. You can be as green or anti-green in your leanings as you like, but we all have to care about human survival. Childhood asthma is a terrible burden on families, including military families -- and at least two of those families are mourning now because of this new service-related pneumonia. We need to expend our national energy budget very wisely, and temper its side-effects but in the right way, even as we prosecute the Global War on Terror. Like I said, it's all connected.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com