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Some experts are
concerned, however, that the full report will not be available to
the public for several months, and they question why the summary
would be released without the data to support its conclusions.
Without the full report, the accuracy of the IPCC summary cannot be
scrutinized. "The policymaker's summary is being carefully edited
behind closed doors by politically appointed bureaucrats," warned
Joseph Bast
(jbast@heartland.org, 312-377-4000), president of The Heartland
Institute. "It is astounding that reporters, aware of this, would
nevertheless treat the summary as credible and newsworthy."
The Heartland Institute contends the body of the study will
contain many qualifications and point to natural variance,
uncertainty in the temperature record and disputes over future
emission scenarios. "But the summary," Bast said, "will generate
misleading Page One headlines, while details of the full study,
details that will contradict the headlines, will be buried on Page
47 six months from now."
"This is not how science should be reported," said Bast.
[to top of second column]
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 James M. Taylor
(taylor@heartland.org, 727-215-3192), The Heartland Institute's
senior fellow for environment policy, pointed out that the IPCC is
expected to dramatically revise its temperature projections, which
are key to the argument that global warming is a full-blown crisis.
"The IPCC is lowering its worst-case temperature projections by more
than 20 percent," said Taylor. "Moreover, they're projecting a rise
in sea levels of only 1 foot over the next century, hardly anything
to be alarmed about."
Taylor finds it "ironic that the more science validates a
moderate, non-alarming, warming trend, the more the alarmists claim
the sky is falling."
(Text from
media
advisory written by Michael Van Winkle,
The Heartland Institute)
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