The headline was a real attention-grabber. It said "More than 11,000 scientists declare 'climate emergency.'"

That, at least, was Voice of America's title.

The article said "more than 11,000 scientists are warning that the Earth, in their words, 'clearly and unequivocally faces a climate emergency.'" It's the subject over which teen activist Greta Thunberg recently has been expressing outrage.

But, the report called "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency," wasn't a study. And they weren't all scientists.

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Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh highlighted the story Monday.

"Our buddies over at Power Line discovered something. Last week (I don’t know if you saw it, there was a story, and it was big out there) 'that 11,000 scientists had issued a report contending that the Earth faces a 'climate emergency.' NBC News … described a 'study' produced by an 'international consortium of more than 11,000 scientists,''" he wrote.

He cited headlines by NBC, CNN, the London Guardian, Al-Jazeera and others.

"'There was no study, there was just a press release," he said. "And it wasn’t 11,000 scientists, it was 11,000 random people who put their names on a web page. This was a total managed lie. There was no study. There were no scientists."

He explained: "People went on a Web page and asked others reading it to put their signature on it. That was then presented as a scientific paper. It’s kind of like these two skeletons that put together Center for Science in the Public Interest that banned coconut oil, MSG. They weren’t scientists. They were just a couple people that didn’t want you to eat what you wanted so they created an icon, got a fax machine, got the media going. It was all made-up stuff."

John Hinderaker at the Powerline Blog wrote: "11,000 scientists? Just kidding."

"The world's news media reported breathlessly that 11,000 scientists had issued a report contending that the Earth faces a 'climate emergency.' NBC News, to cite just one example, described a 'study' produced by an 'international consortium of more than 11,000 scientists.'"

The blog posted a screen shot of headlines by NBC, CNN and others.

"Actually, there was no study, there was just a press release. And it wasn't 11,000 scientists, it was 11,000 random people who put their names on a web page. But today's reporters are so biased and so incompetent that when it comes to 'climate change,' they will swallow anything," Powerline reported.

It posted a video explaining the problem:

The "study's" list of signers included an "animal behavior" teacher in Valencia, a "scientist emeritus" in Canada, a "researcher" in the Czech Republic, a "professor" from Argentina, a "student" from a neotropical biodiversity institute, an obstetrician from Brussels, a Spaniard who's into "biologo," a Turkish mathematician and a Finnish engineer.

The signers said they are alarmed at a lot of things.

"Profoundly troubling signs from human activities include sustained increases in both human and ruminant livestock populations, per capita meat production, world gross domestic product, global tree cover loss, fossil fuel consumption, the number of air passengers carried, carbon dioxide emissions, and per capita CO2 emissions since 2000."

It posted a "suite" of graphical vital signs "of climate change."

The "scientists" forecast doom.

"The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected … It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity ... Especially worrisome are potential irreversible climate tipping points and nature's reinforcing feedbacks … that could lead to a catastrophic 'hothouse Earth,' well beyond the control of humans."

The result could be "large areas of Earth uninhabitable."

One key to solving the problem, they said, is "reducing inequality."