Global Warming: The Science and the Politics

W.J.C. Cherwinski is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the co-author of Lectures in Canadian Labour and
Working-Class History.

On the issue of global warming, environmentalists whose job it is to
raise warning flags maintain that a disaster of cataclysmic proportions
is imminent if the problem is not addressed through an immediate and
drastic reduction in our use of fossil fuels. This book, which was
sponsored by the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based business lobby
group, consists of submissions by scientists who challenge the
doom-and-gloom scenario put forward by these environmentalists and their
supporters in the media.

For the most part, the credentials of the authors are impressive, as
are the data they produce to raise doubts about the gravity of the
situation and the need for drastic action. The American climatologist
Patrick J. Michaels draws upon satellite data to argue that there has
been no marked increase in global temperatures in recent years.
According to the oceanographer Roger Pocklington, his work in the North
Atlantic proves that ocean temperatures are at more or less normal
levels following a lengthy period of warming and cooling. In “The Spin
on Greenhouse Hurricanes,” Robert C. Balling, Jr., discusses the
tendency of the media to blame weather anomalies on global warming,
despite the scientific evidence.

Although this book provides an interesting counterpoint to the
doom-and-gloom perspective, readers should keep in mind the organization
that sponsored it. It was not so long ago that experts recruited by the
tobacco lobby argued that there was no hard scientific evidence to
support the contention that smoking is harmful.