A Climate of Denial

by Kevin Krajick Many lawmakers have been listening seriously since the 1980s to scientists’ warnings that humans are altering the global atmosphere. In 1988 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed and started tracking the state-of-the-art consensus. After a drumbeat of news about record-breaking yearly temperatures took hold in the public mind, National Geographic declared 2004 the year that global warming "got respect." In 2007 the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize. In late 2009 the nations of the world prepared to gather in Copenhagen to "seal the deal," in the words of U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, to abate rising levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Then governments hesitated. Copenhagen was declared dead before arrival. During the run-up, hackers used e-mails stolen from top researchers in Britain and the US to suggest they had systematically exaggerated the threat. This January, it came to light that the IPCC had no peer-reviewed evidence to support its contention that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) (who calls the threat of catastrophic global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"), began calling for criminal investigations of scientists. Bloggers and anonymous e-mailers flooded websites and scientists’ in-boxes with […]

Read More