I'm familiar with the "urban heat island effect". I should have been more explicit for my belief in global warming. I came across an article in Scientific American within the last year, IIRC. The gist of it was that there are satellites that have been monitoring and measuring the sun's output in radiant energy since the late 1970s. The article stated that suns output has been increasing since then. Thanks for the links, BTW.
My problem with Brooks' article is that to get to the point where you think global warming is something we should do something about, you have to make five assumptions which he doesn't even address let alone make the case for. First, you have to assume global warming is happening. Second, you have to assume that if global warming is happening, that is a bad thing (the Russians argue that global warming would be great for them). Third, you have to assume that if global warming is happening and it is bad thing, human beings are the cause of it. Fourth, assuming human beings are the cause of global warming, you then have to assume that we can now do something to reverse it. And fifth you have to assume that if we are causing it and it can be reversed, that the costs of reversing global warming are outweighed by the costs of doing nothing about it. I haven't seen the case made definitively for any of those assumptions, so it would nice to see Brooks make the case before going on to argue that we need to 'do something' about global warming.