To the Editor,

Ray Moseley has global warming all wrong ("U.S. in Hot Seat as Experts to meet on global warming," November 12). But facts won't stop him from portending a global environmental apocalypse of Biblical proportions and advocating the racist Kyoto Protocol. After all, enviro-scare stories sell.

The facts about global warming are not so unquestionable, or scary. A quick web search led me to The Heartland Institute, which summarizes the views of scientists who oppose the Kyoto Protocol and its foundation on unproven scientific claims. Did Mr. Moseley read The Oregon Petition, signed by over 17,000 non-industry-funded scientists, or the Leipzig Declaration against Kyoto, signed by over 100 climate scientists?

The UN funded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in their "Climate Change 1995", could conclude only that "[T]he balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the global climate." Yet IPCC chairman Dr. Bert Bolin said, "the climate issue is not 'settled'; it is both uncertain and incomplete." And Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA, the Earth has slightly cooled since 1979. But environmentalists continue to use the IPCC conclusion to support massive intrusion of government into our lives.

Compared to uncertain effects of greenhouse gasses, the ramifications of Kyoto emission restrictions are real. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Kyoto would reduce the real gross domestic product by $400 billion, raise the price gasoline prices by 66 cents per gallon, increase electricity prices by 86%, and add $1,740 to the typical household's annual energy bill. The National Center for Policy Analysis also reports that Kyoto would reduce the earnings of black and Hispanic workers by 10% and throw over one million of them out of work.

Government bureaucrats gain power by creating problems that allegedly only they can solve. Newspapers want stories that sell. The global warming scare satisfies both parties.

Brian Schwartz