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The Seattle Times has put together an extensive report about global warming. It describes both the science and the problems scientists are having getting the science to the public.

"'There's an overwhelming consensus among scientists,' said UW climate researcher David Battisti, who also was dubious about early claims of greenhouse warming.

Yet the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the public and policy-makers.

Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, calls global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people." Novelist Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" landed on the best-seller list this year by depicting global warming as a scare tactic of diabolical tree-huggers. A Gallup Poll in June found only about half of Americans believe the effects of global warming have already started.

At the G8 summit of world leaders this summer, President Bush acknowledged man is warming the planet. But he stood alone in opposition to mandatory emissions controls, which he called too costly.

'There's a huge disconnect between what professional scientists have studied and learned in the last 30 years, and what is out there in the popular culture,' said Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at the University of California, San Diego.

Fuel companies contribute to that gap by supporting a small cadre of global-warming skeptics, whose views are widely disseminated by like-minded think tanks and Web sites.

Most scientists don't know how to communicate their complex results to the public. Others are scared off by the shrill political debate over the issue. So their work goes on largely unseen, and largely pointing toward a warmer future."

Here is the URL:
The truth about global warming