New Book Contradicts Cheney-Bush Denials re Global Warming

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> Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:06:11 GMT

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> New Book Contradicts Cheney-Bush Denials re

> Global Warming

>

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> August 30, 2004

>

> NEW BOOK CONTRADICTS CHENEY-BUSH DENIALS RE GLOBAL

> WARMING

>

> Seven years ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

> Ross Gelbspan

> focused his reporter's lens on the issue of global

> climate

> change and wrote The Heat Is On, a landmark book

> that exposed

> the links between the so-called global warming

> skeptics and the

> fossil fuel industry, which stands to lose much if

> the world

> gets serious about curbing oil and gas consumption.

>

> Now Gelbspan is back with a new book, Boiling Point

> (Basic

> Books). This time he examines powerful new evidence

> that the

> world's climate system is on the verge of spinning

> out of

> control. At the same time, he offers some remedies

> that the

> world's governments can adopt before it is too late.

>

>

> The obstacles -- particularly in the U.S. -- are

> enormous. The

> current chairman of the Senate Committee on the

> Environment and

> Public Works, James Inhofe (R-OK), has said, " With

> all of the

> hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science,

> could it be

> that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax

> ever

> perpetrated on the American people? It sure sounds

> like it. "

> And, Vice President Cheney has called energy

> conservation a

> " personal virtue, " but not a " sufficient basis for a

> sound,

> comprehensive energy policy. "

>

> Despite the official denials, Gelbspan marshals an

> impressive

> array of facts showing that the climate is indeed

> changing.

> Seventeen of the 18 hottest years on record have

> occurred since

> 1980.

>

> Glaciers are melting on every continent, and

> migratory species

> in both hemispheres are shifting their ranges toward

> the poles.

> Coral reefs around the world are dying in response

> to higher

> temperatures. Mosquito-borne diseases like malaria

> and dengue

> fever are spreading to higher altitudes and higher

> latitudes. In

> Alaska, the average temperature has risen by a

> startling seven

> degrees over the past 30 years.

>

> Meanwhile, Gelbspan reveals, the oil and coal

> industries are

> conducting a furious campaign of disinformation to

> confuse the

> public and delay action -- and evidence shows that

> it is

> working. A 1991 poll by Newsweek magazine showed

> that 35 percent

> of the public thought global warming was a serious

> problem. By

> 1996, even after scientific evidence had become much

> stronger,

> another Newsweek poll found that this number had

> shrunk to 22

> percent - although it has risen since that time,

> with many

> people expressing growing concerns about

> increasingly violent

> weather patterns.

>

> Gelbspan lays much of the blame on his fellow

> journalists, who

> have allowed themselves to be manipulated into

> giving equal time

> to industry-funded skeptics, even though they are at

> odds with

> the overwhelming majority of mainstream scientists.

> Nor does he

> spare the major environmental groups, whom he finds

> too consumed

> with infighting and turf battles to mount an

> effective campaign

> to fight the oil and coal industries.

>

> To avert the coming crisis, Gelbspan urges a

> rigorous, global

> campaign -- based on three specific interactive

> policies -- to

> shift power production to renewable energy. Such a

> program, he

> argues, would carry the added benefit of helping

> democratize the

> global economy, putting the public back in charge of

> both their

> governments and corporations.

>

> It's a tall order. But as Gelbspan indicates in this

> highly

> readable book (very favorably reviewed by Al Gore in

> the August

> 15 Sunday New York Times Book Review), there is

> really little

> choice.

>

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