Doyle Rice

A front page story in USA Today on Wednesday hyperbolically pushed recent storms as proof of global warming, warning, "Weather disasters target N. America." (Weather disasters are targeting America?) Citing a study by a Munich-based insurance firm, reporter Doyle Rice hyped, "The number of natural disasters per year has been rising dramatically on all continents since 1980, but most notably in North America where countries have been battered by hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, searing heat and drought, a new report says."

Rice didn't explain the credentials of Munich Re or its scientific background. For a study dealing with climate change, the company is hardly objective. Their website declares: "It is one of the greatest risks facing mankind. In recent years, Munich Re has actively supported and advanced climate protection and adaptation to global warming."

The "Doomsday Clock" has been with us since 1947. It is a symbolic construct of the now left-leaning Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a group which "was established in 1945 by scientists, engineers, and other experts who had created the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. They knew about the horrible effects of these new weapons and devoted themselves to warning the public about the consequences of using them."

Most people who know of it probably think that the clock's intent is to symbolize how close the world is to the disaster of nuclear war; that was indeed its sole focus for decades. However, the group just moved the clock from six minutes before midnight to five. Wait until you see why, as sympathetically reported on Tuesday by Doyle Rice at USA Today's Science Fair blog: