Global Warming Is Good for You!

Dylan Otto Krider -- who as far as I'm concerned can take the Church of Scientology for all the money it's scammed out of Tom Cruise and John Travolta combined -- points me to his article on Global Warming denier Gerald T. Westbrook. It's just great. Too much to quote, but here's a little bit:

Bottom line, [Dr. Mahlon Kennicutt of Texas A&M] says, is that the Westbrook materials he reviewed are political documents. "They refer to scientific documents, but these are…people taking a position based on their view of the world, and certainly, I'm sure on the industry side there's a belief that they haven't been raping and pillaging their environment."

He says that a decade or so ago, he also didn't think the science was there to prove global warming. Today Kennicutt can't name a single scientist who asserts that carbon dioxide and temperature are not rising, at least in part because of fossil fuels. "The jump then is what does that increase cause?"

There are four levels of global warming denial:

1. "The Earth isn't getting warmer."

2. "Maybe it's getting warmer, but humans aren't the cause."

3. "Okay, humans are the cause, but it's a good thing."

4. "Okay, it's a bad thing, but there's nothing to be done about it."

Westbrook seems to move around between the levels depending upon the audience.

The number of Kyotos required to make a difference, Westbrook says, means "cars go away, the trucks go away. We go back to almost living like the [Native Americans]."

Anyone want to guess what [Native Americans] is in place of?

I'm not pro-Kyoto really; I think it was a bad design and lets poor countries (where a lot of the pollution growth is coming from) off the hook. But its opponents are not being honest about it any more than its supporters.