Headlines are meant to sell papers, but the above scream from atop Page 1 of today’s Houston Chronicle deserves critical comment. A fair and accurate (but less sexy) headline would have been: “EPA Declares Peril of Greenhouse Gases.” Just changing one word–from “recognizes” to “declares”–makes all the difference.

The Chronicle, particularly the editorial page, has been a bastion of climate alarmism rather than informed skepticism, or what a lot of us simply call climate realism. (Eric Berger, the “sci-guy” at the Chronicle, is more of a straight shooter on day-to-day global-warming reporting.)

The science is not settled in favor of climate alarmism. But this conclusion requires some background and explanation.…

I have previously posted on NASA scientist and leading climate alarmist James Hansen as a “scientist behaving strangely.” His mixing of politics and science–controversial science at that–has raised eyebrows among friend and foe.

But then there is the old, more moderate Jim Hansen. Below, I offer some quotations for the historical record. There are undoubtedly other quotations that can be added–and should be in the “comments” section, whether by Hansen or by colleagues of Hansen.

Perhaps Dr. Hansen can say that his thinking has evolved toward greater alarm. But if so, with temperatures little or no higher today than when he wrote a decade or more ago, the question must be asked: why has his alarm gone up rather than down?…

Historian of science Thomas Kuhn warned of “scientists … behav[ing] differently” and experiencing “pronounced professional insecurity” when one of their long-held beliefs comes under increasing pressure from new science (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970, pp. 24, 67–68).

Is this the case with NASA scientist James Hansen, who (in the opinion of his many and growing critics, and even some friends) keeps putting his foot where his mouth is?…