Explores the science and politics of global warming and argues that it is vastly overrated as an environmental threat. Draws on scientific data to show that initial forecasts of rapid global warming were wrong, and points out that attempts to fix the forecast by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are even more misguided than the original projections. Michaels is a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. A co-author, Robert C. Balling, Jr., is director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)