Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

This is a note I submitted to NPR yesterday regarding their truly horrible coverage of "global warming" in recent weeks.

I have supported NPR in the past, but this year I am withholding my contribution because I am so tired of all the junk science and junk economics coming from your reporters about global warming.

Every day I hear a story in your series where you discuss how people affect climate in which some reporter breathlessly talks about how if we don't take this or that "green" action, the world will keep getting warmer.

Despite the claims of Al Gore and friends, the science behind such fear-mongering is exceptionally weak. For example, it seems clear (but is never mentioned on NPR or any other liberal media outlet) that atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase after temperature increases, not before.

Additionally, the effect of CO2 on climate (beyond likely being much less than the current climate of fear causes many to believe) is non-linear. Further increases in CO2 concentrations will increase temperatures less, not more, than prior increases of the same proportion.

Most important is that the earth's climate changes are most likely due to natural cycles, most importantly of the sun. Human activity is probably not a substantial contributor to climate change.

On the economic front, your reporters breezily skip through the issue with barely a mention of the exceptionally high costs that global warming alarmists are implicitly suggesting we pay for a very uncertain chance of a very small benefit. It is not possible to meet anything like Kyoto targets in less than a couple of generations, if ever, and each attempt to get there sooner than technology and the marketplace are ready amounts to little more than a massive tax increase on society.

You should make your reporters offer at least a semblance of balance and of having learned something about climate from a source other than Al Gore's fictional movie. Despite what the people in the big business of scaring us about climate change want us to believe, the debate is NOT over.

I will consider renewing my financial support for NPR after you start offering some balanced reporting on the issue. I understand that many, if not most, of your listeners have drunk the same alarmist kool-aid that you have, but that is no excuse for abandoning the duties of responsible journalism.