Waiting to Exhale

Thomas Sowell discusses the political trickery engaged in by the Gang Green:


GLOBAL HOT AIR: PART III
By Thomas Sowell, February 15, 2007

If you take the mainstream media seriously, you
might think that every important scientist
believes that "global warming" poses a great
threat, and that we need to make drastic changes
in the way we live, in order to avoid
catastrophes to the environment, to various species, and to ourselves.

The media play a key role in perpetuating such
beliefs. Often they seize upon every heat wave to
hype global warming, but see no implications in
record-setting cold weather, such as many places
have been experiencing lately.

Remember how the unusually large number of
hurricanes a couple of years ago was hyped in the
media as being a result of global warming, with
more such hurricanes being predicted to return
the following year and the years
thereafter? But, when not one hurricane struck
the United States all last year, the media had
little or nothing to say about the false
predictions they had hyped. It's heads I win and tails you lose.

Are there serious scientists who specialize in
weather and climate that have serious doubts
about the doomsday scenarios being pushed by
global warming advocates? Yes, there are.

There is Dr. S. Fred Singer, who set up the
American weather satellite system, and who
published some years ago a book titled "Hot Talk,
Cold Science." More recently, he has co-authored
another book on the subject, "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years."

There have been periods of global warming that
lasted for centuries -- and periods of global
cooling that also lasted for centuries. So the
issue is not whether the world is warmer now than
at some time in the past but how much of that
warming is due to human beings and how much can
we reduce future warming, even if we drastically
reduce our standard of living in the attempt.

Other serious scientists who are not on the
global warming bandwagon include a professor of
meteorology at MIT, Richard S. Lindzen. His name
was big enough for the National Academy of
Sciences to list it among the names of other
experts on its 2001 report that was supposed to
end the debate by declaring the dangers of global
warming proven scientifically.

Professor Lindzen then objected and pointed out
that neither he nor any of the other scientists
listed ever saw that report before it was
published. It was in fact written by government
bureaucrats -- as was the more recently published
summary report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) that is also touted as the
final proof and the end of the discussion.

You want more experts who think otherwise? Try a
professor of environmental sciences at the
University of Virginia, Patrick J. Michaels, who
refers to the much ballyhooed 2001 IPCC summary
as having "misstatements and errors" that he calls "egregious."

A professor of climatology at the University of
Delaware, David R. Legates, likewise referred to
the 2001 IPCC summary as being "often in direct
contrast with the scientific report that
accompanies it." It is the summaries that the
media hype. The full 2007 report has not even been published yet.

Skeptical experts in other countries around the
world include Duncan Wingham, a professor of
climate physics at the University College,
London, and Nigel Weiss of Cambridge University.

The very attempt to silence all who disagree
about global warming ought to raise red flags.

Anyone who remembers the 1970s should remember
the Club of Rome report that was supposed to be
the last word on economic growth grinding to a
halt, "overpopulation" and a rapidly approaching
era of mass starvation in the 1980s. In reality,
the 1980s saw increased economic growth around
the world and, far from mass starvation, an
increase in obesity and agricultural surpluses in
many countries. But much of the media went for
the Club of Rome report and hyped the hysteria.

Many in the media resent any suggestion that they
are either shilling for an ideological agenda or
hyping whatever will sell newspapers or get
higher ratings on TV. Here is their chance to
check out some heavyweight scientists
specializing in weather and climate, instead of
taking Al Gore's movie or the pronouncements of
government bureaucrats and politicians as the last word.
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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA