Skeptics

Retired U.S military leaders and war veterans are calling on Sen. James Inhofe to apologize for an offensive remark he made accusing them of supporting global warming action only to get publicity.

In an interview published in the Nov. 29 New York Times Magazine, Inhofe said that calling climate change a threat to national security "is the most ludicrous thing."

"Five generals out of 4,000 retired generals ... say that. There are a lot of generals who don't like to be out of the limelight. They’d like to get back in," the Oklahoma Republican said.

Operation Free, a coalition of leading veterans' and national security organizations, launched a petition in response.

"Enough is enough. Swiftboating our military veterans, and questioning their patriotism, for crass political gain should not be tolerated. ... Senator Inhofe, you need to apologize," the group said.

Saying "it's just those five generals" pressing for climate change laws "is sadly misguided," Jon Powers, an Iraq war veteran and member of the Operation Free coalition, told reporters Tuesday.

Three leading scientists who yesterday released a report documenting the accelerating pace of climate change said the scandal that erupted last week over hacked emails from climate scientists is nothing more than a "smear campaign" aimed at sabotaging December climate talks in Copenhagen.

"We're facing an effort by special interests who are trying to confuse the public," said Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a lead author of the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

Dissenters see action to slow global warming as "a threat," he said.

The comments were made in a conference call for reporters.

The scientists—Somerville, Michael Mann of Penn State and Eric Steig of University of Washington—were supposed to be discussing their new report, the Copenhagen Diagnosis, a dismal update of the UN IPCC's 2007 climate data by 26 scientists from eight nations.

Instead they spent much of the time defusing the hacker controversy, known in the media as "Climate Gate."