Senate Staffer Refutes U.N. Global Warming Report The United Nations has issued a report stating that global warming is man-made and humans are to blame for the extreme weather conditions of recent years. But Marc Morano, communications director with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said the “scientific” report is bogus. Appearing on Fox News, Morano told John Gibson: “The first thing you have to realize is that what the U.N. came out with is not a scientific document, it is a political document approved by U.N. political delegates. The media has been reporting around the world that thousands of scientists have gotten together and this is their report. That is not the case… “This is not thousands of scientists speaking, this is hundreds of U.N. bureaucrats and delegates speaking… "The New York Times last year in April said that few scientists agree that any recent weather events including Katrina, drought, floods, are due to man-made global warming. There's nothing they can point to that's outside natural variability.” When Gibson brought up the threat from Jacques Chirac of France that the European Union would heavily tax American exports to Europe if the U.S. doesn’t fall into line with the Kyoto Protocol – which dictates limits on the emission of greenhouse gases – Morano responded: “It's the same Jacques Chirac who called Kyoto the first step to authentic global governance in 2000. That gives you an idea of the agenda behind it and Jacques Chirac is threatening the U.S. “The odd thing about it is, 13 of the 15 EU nations aren't meeting the requirements of Kyoto and the EU nations’ emissions are rising twice as fast as the U.S. The U.S. is actually doing better even though we haven't ratified Kyoto. But they're trying to make the U.S. out to be the evil boogieman in the world.” Meanwhile, one leading scientist is placing the blame for global warming on another “culprit” – the sun. Israeli astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, who has made a name for himself studying meteorites, said: “Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming.” In remarks reported by Canada’s National Post, Dr. Shaviv stated that much evidence has been accumulating over the past decade of the strong relationship that variations in the sun’s cosmic-ray emissions have on our atmosphere – so much evidence that “it is unlikely that [the solar-climate link] does not exist.” In his study of meteorites, published in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, Dr. Shaviv found that some meteorites reaching the earth sustained up to 10 percent more cosmic-ray damage than others. That kind of cosmic-ray variation, he believes, could alter global temperatures by as much as 15 percent – enough to begin or end an ice age.