An Inconvenient Truth Squad

Though the mainstream media has kept the facts well-hidden, and Hollywood would proclaim otherwise, global warming skeptics not only exist, but they are plentiful in number. Furthermore, a fair number of the skeptics are scientists and experts in meteorology, and some are even converted Kyoto supporters.

Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., addressed a crowd of sleepy youth in a breakfast discussion on global warming at the Youth of America Foundation conference last Thursday. An enthusiastic disposition mixed with words of sarcastic humor set the tone for his presentation “Global Warming: the Momentum Has Shifted to the Skeptics.”

The twentieth century media has ridden quite a roller coaster of opinion on future climate crisis, beginning with a widespread fear of global cooling at the turn of the century:

• The debate lasted into the 1930s, with the advent of a change in mainstream opinion.

• From the 1920s until the 1960s, the general mainstream media coverage cited a future global warming crisis.

• During the 1950s, however, the pendulum began to swing yet again toward a proposed global cooling crisis.

• Starting in the 1980s and continuing until the present day, however, the cry of a global warming and climate crisis has taken root and spread to all echelons of society.

This century-long state of flux, however, gives little stability to the current media’s unofficial stance in favor of global warming. In fact, Inhofe presented just a sampling of a large number of climate scientists who are firmly opposed to the advocated “crisis” the earth now faces:

o Claude Allegre, a converted alarmist and prominent French geophysicist, believes that the cause of climate change has not yet been found, and that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people.”

o 60 prominent scientists reported last year to the Canadian Prime Minister, “If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”

o A panel of broadcast Meteorologists, in February, claimed that 95% of weathermen are skeptical of the global warming crisis. Meteorologist Mark Johnson stated, “You tell me you’re going to predict climate change based on 100 years of data for a rock that’s 6 billion years old?”

o Henrik Svensmark, a climate scientist who conducted research with the Danish National Space Centre, reported that the earth is actually undergoing a period of naturally-low cloud cover because of fewer cosmic rays. “We have the highest solar activity we have had in at least 1,000 years,” he stated.

o Renowned Astrophysicist Nir Shaviv of Israel has changed his belief of man-made emissions driving the climate change. “Solar activity can explain a large part of 20th-century global warming,” he now states.

Political leaders are also beginning to embrace the claim of a global warming hoax. Czech President Vaclav Klaus reported in a Czech newspaper that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a mere “political body,” and that the alarm of a man-made climate catastrophe was simply a “myth.” Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, reportedly once stated that the Kyoto Protocol was in fact a “socialist scheme” with the purpose of channeling money out of wealthy countries.

Despite such a controversial melting-pot of differing evidence, the U.S. continues to drift ever closer to the American embrace of the UN Kyoto protocol. Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates estimates that adopting the Kyoto Protocol to “soften” the global warming catastrophe would reduce temperature by approximately .06 degree Celsius. The annual estimated cost for a family of four would amount to approximately $2,700. Senator Inhofe asserts that the tax increases as a result of adopting the Kyoto Protocol would hover around $300 billion—by far the largest tax increase in American history.

Even the UN is now recanting its once rigid dogma of man-made global warming. According to the 2007 UN Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change report, estimates for the sea level rise in the past 6 years have decreased 50%, while man’s estimated impact on the climate has been downgraded significantly. Now, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization hypothesizes that cow emissions are more damaging to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide from cars.

Though a Federal crackdown on cheeseburgers and steaks might be unlikely, Senator Inhofe presented the damning facts against a supposed worldwide acceptance of man-made global warming. The United Nations and Hollywood, after all, cannot completely silence the voice of the public, especially the educated voices.

Matt Hadro is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.