Dire Warnings

Fox News

Some dire warnings came out of the summary of a forthcoming United Nations scientific report on climate change — such as the conclusion that global warming is most likely caused by humans, might spark fierce natural disasters and could be around for centuries.

A sample of mainstream media reaction — ABC News "(there is) no longer any question that the earth is warming. The warming is due to greenhouse gasses and those gasses are produced by us." CBS — "the planet is warming up, and it's our fault." The New York Times says the report "lays the whole problem at humanity's doorstep."

But as we pointed out Friday — critics say the summary is actually the work of political appointees and not scientists. And The Wall Street Journal says the technical report to be released in a few months will backpedal from several earlier predictions — such as a decrease by half in the estimated sea level rise and a finding that the last report overestimated human influence on climate change since the industrial revolution by one-third.