In his opinion piece entitled “Global warming bill still contains some smoke and mirrors,” Todd Darling complains about the details of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill while suggesting that its goals are essentially correct because “Now, with President Obama, White House views on global warming finally are in line with scientific data.”

However, just as a statement that “the debate is over” doesn’t make it so, Mr. Darling’s assertion that the scientific data supports President Obama’s acceptance of man-made “global warming” does not suddenly make the data conform to either Darling’s or Obama’s wishes.

The data and research which argue against Mr. Obama’s views are many, including:

* “average global temperatures peaked in 1998 and since have fallen slightly, even as carbon dioxide levels continue to climb…”
* The Arctic sea ice extent is at about its average level for the last 8 years despite claims of its permanent disappearance. Furthermore, the average arctic temperature was still not above freezing on June 25th, the latest date since records started being kept fifty years ago.
* Recent research is showing the major flaw in all the models used by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which predict massive warming: They assume “positive feedback” which does not match what is actually occurring.
* Research shows that incorrect sensor placement (i.e. near heat sources, on black roofs, etc.) may be responsible for much apparent warming. And, in a related story, a faulty ocean sensor earlier this year understated the amount of arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers, roughly the size of California.
* And maybe most importantly, the Obama Administration knows –and attempted to cover up – that there is research from its own employees which is extremely hazardous to Democratic plans to use “global warming” and fear of CO2 as the tool with which to take over much of the American economy: In March of this year, a senior analyst at the EPA was told by his Office Director that he would not forward on the analyst’s comments which the analyst said “present information critical to the justification (or lack thereof) for the proposed endangerment finding.” The Director simply said that the decision had been made (at a political level) and that information which contradicted it would be inconvenient.

One can write, and many have written, page after page of solid science which point to man-made global warming being at best overstated and at worst an outright hoax.

And while a reporter always has a responsibility to get his facts straight, it is particularly important when those facts (or, in this case Mr. Darling’s erroneous declaration) become the basis for citizens to support or oppose some of the most significant legislation, with some of the largest ramifications for our economy and our liberty, of our lifetimes.