In the news today:
Publishers of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World scrambled Tuesday to correct a controversial statement that Greenland had lost 15 percent of its permanent ice cover over the last 12 years — an assertion scientists labeled “incorrect and misleading.”
The claim came in a HarperCollins press release on the publication of the 13th edition of the atlas, stating that global warming was “turning Greenland ‘green.'” The gradual melting was also depicted in the atlas itself, as cartographers carved out huge chunks of ice to reflect the apparent results of a warming planet.
That was a mistake, scientists say.
Poul Christoffersen, a glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said the 15 percent decrease in permanent ice cited “is both incorrect and misleading.” He believes the actual number is closer to 0.1 percent.
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One of the Republican candidates for president, Rick Perry, has described the theory of man-made global warming as “all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight” in his book, “Fed Up!” Conservative website Newsmax has noted that “Perry is virtually unique in the current presidential field in that he hasn’t expressed concern about climate change in the past, so he won’t have to do any back-pedaling.”
Indeed.