Are humans acting like frogs in the the global warming Epidemic

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Confronted by new evidence of global warming, will people react like frogs?

According to an often-told story, a frog will try to jump out if you drop it into hot water but the hapless creature will stay, and eventually die, if you put it in a pan of cool water and slowly bring it to a boil.

A United Nations report to be released in Paris on February 2 will include the strongest warning yet that humans are stoking global warming that may cause colossal damage to nature if, like the doomed frog, they ignore rising temperatures.

Ex-U.S. Vice President Al Gore tells the story with croaking cartoon frogs in his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' to urge more action to save the planet. In his version, a hand dips in and rescues a swooning frog just as the water starts to bubble.

"It's important to rescue the frog," he says. And U.N. officials also sometimes mention the boiled frog as a cautionary tale of the dangers of human complacency about global warming.

There is only one problem -- it's not true.

"The 'boiled frog'...is definitely an urban myth," said Victor Hutchison, a professor emeritus at the zoology department at the University of Oklahoma in the United States.

Continued