MADISON - ST. CLAIR RECORD

To the Editor:

On Wednesday, September 18, Fox News ran a special two-hour program hosted by Brett Baier that covered a wide range of topics, including The Heartland Institute's release of the Nongovernmental International Panel of Climate Change (NIPCC) report, Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science, a massive 1,018-page report explaining why global warming is not a crisis.

Although the NIPCC report was released formally on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at a news conference at the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago, the conference was poorly attended despite its promotion by Heartland.

I searched the media for reports following the news conference, but could find none. That's certainly not surprising in a city where the media unconditionally supports global warming and refuses to give the "other" side the time of day, as the Chicago-based Heartland Institute has experienced time and again over the years.  Fox News Chicago was the one shining light -- the exception -- and a most welcome one.

Featured on the two-hour special was footage videotaped in Fox's Chicago studio of Dr. Willie Soon, astrophysicist and geoscientist and lead author for CCR II, and Joe Bast, president of The Heartland Institute.  The clip is posted on YouTube.

Bast and Soon left a special luncheon in progress at the headquarters of The Heartland Institute to share their remarks at the Fox Chicago studio.  Other notable scientists speaking at the luncheon but not traveling to Fox's studio were Dr. S. Fred Singer, Director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and a lead author and editor of CCR II, and Dr. Craig D. Idso, chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, likewise a lead author and editor of CCR II.

It was fitting that the Fox News account of a hearing held by House Republicans and attended by the Obama Administration's chief climate change people, served as a perfect segue into the comments made by Joe Bast and Dr. Soon about the NIPCC report release.

Even as the world awaits the release of the IPCC AR5 report next week in Stockholm, Sweden (195 governments fund the IPCC), and despite a leaked draft of the report where "top climate scientists" have admitted that their global warming forecasts are wrong and the world is not heating up at the rate previously reported, the IPCC still insists that it is more confident than ever - 95% certain -- that global warming is mainly human fault and that C02 is the culprit.

Regrettably, climate change has become a major political issue. Hence, some individuals and groups with political agendas ignore or ridicule the scientific study of climate change when it doesn’t support their political views. One frequently used technique to disparage the science of climate change is to select a few bits of superficially contrary data and claim that they negate the whole body of work in support of climate change.

With a sparse amount of truthful and thoughtful reporting on this latest development, it will take effort to understand Global Warming, but it is necessary and worthwhile.

Nancy Thorner

Lake Bluff, Ill.