“Scientists generally believe that the combustion of fossil fuels and other human activities . . . are likely to accelerate the rate of climate change.” —United States Environmental Protection Agency, January 18, 2001

“Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate.” —Joseph Bast, Heartland Policy Study, October 30, 1998

The global warming hypothesis originated in 1896 when Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, developed the theory that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels would cause global temperatures to rise by trapping excess heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Arrhenius understood that the earth’s climate is heated by a process known as the greenhouse effect. While close to half the solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface is reflected back into space, the remainder is absorbed by land masses and oceans, warming the earth’s surface and...