Newsweek magazine this week, in writing about the Gulf oil spill, had this to say about oil companies:

And the list above doesn’t even include the fact that what the oil companies sell is one of the major contributors to catastrophic climate change.

There is a very specific error with this sentence. Can you see what it is?

If you said it is “climate change” being substituted for “global warming” you would have a point. If you take the stance that CO2 causes global warming then why alter the name to climate change? CO2 doesn’t cause global cooling so what else is left if the climate is not warming or cooling? So unless you want to hide something, say what you mean and call it global warming.

But that is not the error I speak of. It is the use of one word — catastrophic. There has been no catastrophic global warming. Where is the catastrophe? There is none. But the Newsweek sentence states the fact that oil is the major contributor to this fictional catastrophe.

No wonder The Washington Post wants to sell Newsweek magazine.