Stormfront.org/by Metwar

EDITOR’S CHOICE: Amid the hysteria over man-made global warming, there is real concern that the world may be entering a new “Little Ice Age.” Even as Obama and the Democrats want the world economy shut down to protect the environment, many scientists now believe that solar cycles may be dictating a new period of global cooling. Some contrarians are looking at financial moves that could help cash in on the changes -- that may end up freezing us all to death.

Donald Luskin of SmartMoney.com has published a thoughtful argument along these lines. The whole world is obsessed with the risk of global warming. So take the other side of the bet, and invest in global cooling. This idea even has a deeper level of contrariness going for it. It's your chance to do exactly what the old Wall Street cliché tells you not to do -- to play the stock market based on sun-spots.

SUN SPOTS: Based on the hard-science of sun-spots, there's very good reason to believe that the unusually cold weather the world has been experiencing for the last couple years -- and that we're experiencing all over America this very moment -- will last for many more years. If it does, that has profound economic implications, and gives rise to some very interesting investment opportunities.

This winter is already about the coldest since the early 1980s across the United States and Europe. It's leading to an unusual number of weather-related deaths, as well as widespread surges in home-heating costs, transportation delays and crop damage.

How can this be happening when there's supposed to be global warming?

CYCLICAL: The answer probably can be found in the cyclical behavior of the sun, specifically the regular ebb and flow in the number of sun-spots. Even if the theory of global warming based on man-made greenhouse gases is entirely correct for the long term (I'm not granting that -- I'm just saying "even if"), then within that we could still experience major intermediate-term cold snaps due to solar activity.

Astronomers have been observing the sun and keeping records of sun-spots for centuries. At the moment, the number of sun-spots is pretty much zero. It's the very bottom of the solar cycle. Over history, that cycle has had a period of about 11 years. So if the past is any guide, we could be in for another couple years of very low solar activity. A very low number of sun-spots have been historically associated with periods of cooler weather.

The "Maunder minimum," named after the 19th century scientist, who discovered it, was a long stretch of near-zero sun-spot activity in the late 1600s which some believe triggered a period known to climate historians as "the Little Ice Age."

POVERTY YEAR: Another period of low sun-spot activity was the "Dalton minimum," named after another scientist, which occurred in 1816. The world experienced what climate historians call "the year without a summer." Crop failures were so severe that most of the Western world suffered food shortages. There were food riots throughout Europe. That's why some historians still call it "the poverty year."

We're at a new sun-spot minimum right now. I'm not saying it will lead to an ice age, big or little. Nor am I saying it will lead to food shortages. But if the extremely cold weather of the last couple years and this winter persists for several years more -- and especially if it gets worse -- we would definitely get some very major disruptions in our lives.

For one thing, the cost of energy would go up because we'd have to pay so much more to heat our homes and buildings in the longer, colder winters. Yes, there would be some offset potentially from lower air conditioning demand in shorter, cooler summers. But on balance I estimate that fuel utilization would rise considerably.

ENERGY: So there's investment opportunity number one. Invest in energy commodities, and in companies that have large oil reserves, or ones that have new energy technologies that only become feasible when oil prices are high.

If there are colder winters, then there will be crop failures in agricultural centers like Florida and California that are able to grow food all year around. Winter crops like oranges will get wiped out. Take a page from the script of "Trading Places" and buy orange juice futures - another investment opportunity. Similarly, the summer growing season will be shorter. So America won't produce as much corn or wheat. So there's another investment: Buy agricultural commodities, or stocks of firms that control them.

FOOD: There's also a link between food and energy. An important use of petroleum is to produce the nitrogen required to refresh the deplete soil from intensely farmed crops like corn. If shorter growing seasons cause more acres to have to be put into crops, then there will be more acres to fertilize. There's another reason to invest in oil.

Another thing that would happen is that transportation would be disrupted. That's not just an inconvenience, and not just the minor cost of missed work and missed business opportunities. The modern world of wholesale and retail distribution depends critically on transportation, on America's highways and around the world.

Giant sellers like Walmart don't keep huge inventories -- they rely on transportation to get new goods to their shelves "just in time." That's why the prices are so low. Take away transportation, and you take away the low prices. So there's another investment idea. Sell retail stocks. They're margins are going to get squeezed.

TRANSPORTATION: Furthermore, without reliable transportation, it becomes harder to get goods into American stores from around the world. Suddenly China isn't so competitive with American manufacturing. Selling stuff to America is what China is all about. So there's another investment idea. Pull back on the current fad of investing in China out of the false belief that its miracle economy can go nowhere but up.

If this all plays out, it won't be pretty. The world is struggling already to recover from a deep recession. The last thing we need is higher energy costs, higher food costs and disrupted global transportation. But if this idea is right, it won't do you any good to deny it. You might as well hedge against it -- and perhaps even profit from it.

That's what's so great about markets. As long as you know what's happening, even if it's bad, you can make some money.