Stossel on global warming
Posted by Richard on October 31, 2007
ABC's 20/20 recently featured another great segment by John Stossel. This time, Stossel had some questions about global warming and Al Gore's claim that "the debate's over." In a related column available at The Atlasphere, Stossel noted:
If you must declare a debate over, then maybe it’s not. And if you have to gussy up your agenda as “our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level,” then it deserves some skeptical examination.
Stossel pointed out that Gore's film overstates the predicted sea level rise by an order of magnitude or more, that polar bear populations aren't threatened, as Gore claims, but stable or increasing, and that Gore's dramatic picture of an historic correlation between CO2 levels and temperature concealed the fact that warming always came before a rise in CO2 levels. He had other questions, too:
If it’s all man’s fault, why did the Arctic go through a warm period early last century? Why did Greenland’s temperatures rise 50 percent faster in the 1920s than they are rising now?
The media rarely ask such questions.
Stossel wanted to ask Gore these and other questions, but the Goracle refused.
Stossel also spoke with some of the scientists who've been marginalized by Gore and his acolytes, ignored by the press, and in some cases even threatened. They made it clear that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) isn't the impartial body of scientists that it's portrayed to be by the media. Members were carefully selected by the governments involved, and many aren't even scientists, they're activists.
If you've looked into this issue as I have, none of this is news to you. But Stossel does a fine job of briefly and clearly raising these issues in a way that may cause open-minded viewers to question some of the conventional wisdom. The 8-minute video is well worth watching and sharing with your friends and family:
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