The former figure comes from NASA’s weather satellites; the latter from unreliable ground measurements that account for less than 1/3 of the earth’s surface.

However, many people vaguely recall news reports from 2001, stating that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) unanimously concluded it was a fact that global warming would endanger humankind. What’s the story?

The truth is that, in their quest to grab attention and to keep the story succinct, the media made grotesque and inaccurate generalizations.

For instance, the New York Times reported that "former skeptics" like MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen, who has long contended that global warming won’t pose a danger, changed his mind and admitted the horrors of the greenhouse effect on earth. That didn’t happen.

NAS is definitely aware that there’s no consensus on global warming in the scientific community. So it first gathered a group of scientists to draft a long essay on how dangerous global warming will be.

Then, to allegedly give voice to the many scientists who believe that global warming will be safe, it asked them to contribute their own conclusions to the report, making it even longer. Meteorologist Lindzen was among them. Afterward, the NAS puts everything together into one gigantic report.

The whole report is so lengthy, and so difficult for a non-scientist to read, that reporters don’t bother with it. They instead read the NAS’s press release and report “summary,” which only talk of ecological apocalypse and ignore the information that Lindzen and the “skeptic” scientists took the time to contribute.

Hence, the media’s message makes the false implication that the NAS “unanimously” believes in the 4-degree warming theory. That the New York Times said that Lindzen changed his mind, just because his findings were included in the NAS volume, is just an example of the Times' sloppy journalism.

That's not the first time something like this has happened. In 1998, the media reported that the Kyoto Accord -- the international document advocating the implementation of multinational laws to curb fossil fuel emissions -- was drafted by 2,000 scientists. It wasn't.

It was only written by a handful of politicians and scientists, and 2000 people were merely cited in it or asked to review it.

The scientific conclusions of Lindzen, geophysicist Fred Singer, and Robert Balling (the climatology office’s director at Arizona State University) -- all of whom have concluded that global warming will not be a threat -- were cited briefly in this document.

Yet they are included in the media’s figure of the “2,000 scientists” who allegedly wrote and endorsed its scientific conclusions and unscientifically anti-market policy prescriptions.

Incidentally, the Kyoto Protocol's other 2,000 scientists included those who were not even experts on climatology, such as plastic surgeons, chiropractors, gynecologists, and social workers. And some of the "scientists" weren't even real scientists, but politicians representing various national governments.

There is, however, a more credible document called “The Oregon Petition.”

Circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and endorsed by 17,000 scientists, it states that there’s no conclusive evidence that CO2 emissions will have a negative impact on human living conditions in this century.

At least 7,677 of the signers are well qualified to judge CO2’s effects on earth's climate or its life forms. And previous NAS president Frederick Seitz wrote the petition’s introduction at http://www.oism.org/pproject/

So why hasn’t this been acknowledged by the media, Al Gore, or even an oilman like George W. Bush?

Well, what headline would grab your attention better and make you immediately purchase a newspaper?: “The world is dying, but you can help save it. Here’s how.” or “The earth’s fine. You haven’t affected it.”

The latter headline is boring, don’t you think? As for Gore, Clinton, and Bush-appointed EPA director Christine Whitman, all have gained more regulatory power as a result of the widespread belief that industrialism will destroy the planet and only government regulation can save it.

People are much more willing to give politicians more power in a time of crisis, of which a potential apocalypse would definitely qualify.

If politicians and environmental activists admitted that the earth was not in danger and that their precious Kyoto Accord wasn’t necessary, how much more power and favorable publicity would they gain?

Stuart K. Hayashi is the president of the Reason Club of Honolulu and an undergraduate in Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawaii Pacific University, though his opinions do not necessarily reflect that of either institution. He can be reached at radical_individualist@hotmail.com (If you would like to continue seeing Stuart Hayashi's editorials on this site, please let Hawaii Reporter know at info@hawaiireporter.com)

Here are some NASA sites you can visit on the subject: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd5feb97_1.htm http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/essd12mar97_1.htm http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/atmos_layers.html http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast20oct_1.htm

Interview with Harvard astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas: http://reason.com/9810/fe.baliunas.shtml

Article by MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen on climate change: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg15n2g.html

The home page of geophysicist S. Fred Singer, emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, and first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service: http://www.sepp.org

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