Kerby Anderson

In his latest video, John Stossel takes on climate myths. The response he receives from some of those he interviewed may be familiar. But he felt a video was necessary since the U.N. Secretary-General has recently announced, “The era of global boiling has arrived.” Yes, the climate has been warming over the last century, but we don’t have global boiling.

Myth number one is: The Arctic will soon be ice-free. He provides some video of scientists and politicians talking about arctic ice and glaciers. Heartland Institute fellow Linnea Lueken put that in perspective with a graph showing virtually no change. She adds, “Compared to the amount of ice that's in the Arctic, is like a grain of sand ... so minuscule compared to the amount of ice that's there, it doesn't even show up on a trend chart when you plot it.”

Myth number two is: Polar bears are going extinct. As I have documented in previous commentaries, Polar bear populations have increased. “In the 1960s, 17,000-19,000 was the highest of three scientific estimates of polar bear population. Today, there are about 26,000 polar bears.”

Myth number three is: Climate change has created a massive global food shortage. Again, as I have documented in previous commentaries, just the opposite is true. The extra carbon dioxide likely increases food production. That is why we inject CO2 into greenhouses. Lueken explains that “It helps to fertilize plants for faster and better growth.”

He ends with a newspaper story claiming that “devastation that climate change had wrought” caused a rise in coffee prices. But global coffee production has increased by 82 percent since the 1990s.

The lesson is simple: just because you read it or hear it in the media, doesn’t make it true.