http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2001/01/26/global_warming/index.html

January 26, 2001 | After this week's release of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report on global warming -- the strongest scientific evidence ever linking climate change to man's activities -- environmentalists and scientists say the time has come for President Bush to come up with a policy to address this slow-moving ecological crisis.

The study predicts that the Earth's temperature could increase up to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. In fact, it says we just exited the warmest decade in the last 140 years.

While there's been little doubt that the climate is indeed warming -- glaciers are retreating, sea levels are rising, precipitation is changing -- there have been some high-profile skeptics, Bush included. They question the science linking this general warming trend to things that humans do, such as burning fossil fuel, which releases carbon dioxide. The increase of carbon dioxide and methane, another greenhouse gas, is believed to enhance the "greenhouse effect" that traps heat in Earth's atmosphere that otherwise would be released.

"I don't think we know the solution to global warming yet and I don't think we've got all the facts," said Bush during his second presidential debate. (The president's office did not return phone calls from Salon seeking comment on his current position.)