'GMA' Features Professor Who Blames Greenhouse Gases for Current Heat Wave

Think it's hot outside? "Good Morning America" wants you to think it is your fault - at least that's why an expert featured on the June 9 show told viewers it is hotter outside.

Stanford University professor Dr. Stephen Schneider said that methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are making hot temperatures even hotter.

"While this heat wave like all other heat waves is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making a little bit hotter," Schneider said. "[W]e've already increased by 35 percent the amount of carbon dioxide which traps heat. We've added 150 percent more methane, which also traps heat."

Ironically, in 1971, Schneider co-authored a research article that explored both warming and cooling of the Earth, warning that a certain level of aerosols entering the atmosphere could trigger an ice age.

The heat that Schneider tied to greenhouse gas emissions resulted in some people being treated for heat stroke during a charity run, according to ABC weatherman Sam Champion.

"Now, people did try to get out in the heat over the weekend and a lot folks were out playing around in it," Champion said. "But at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C., 34 people had to be pulled from the race to be treated for heat stroke."

However, Dr. Roy Spencer, the principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville, told the Business & Media Institute that making a connection between the East Coast heat wave and emissions was "too much."

"This is the alarmists' standard answer," Spencer said. "But the area of unusually cool weather out West is much larger in extent than the area of warm weather in the east - an inconvenient truth, you might say."