Monday, May 22, 2006

Opinions differ on temperature of earth

If you start reading today's New York Times Arts section article about Al Gore's film from the end and see:

Adam Nagourney contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

then what precedes makes more sense. In particular:

The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute

a laughable description of an organisation whose name reeks of lobbyist cookbookery and which is a front for ExxonMobil* and other energy companies, and

For the moment, opinions on [the film's] prospects range from hopeful to scornful, not so much a reflection on the film's quality as the vast distance between combatants in the fight over what to do, or not do, about human-caused warming.

the "combatants" in this case being just about every reputable scientist on one hand, and on the other, the few shills, spinners, and outright fools who still maintain that global warming is not a problem.

UPDATE: The Washington Post's Sebastian Mallaby argues that the political hackery that has greeted Al Gore's flim is actually going to help it and its cause.

*FINAL UPDATE 21 SEP: Exxon has in fact discontinued its funding of CEI, following complaints about CEI's promotion of junk "debunkings" of global warming (WSJ, subs. req'd). Iain Murrary, a "senior fellow" at CEI got through an entire global warming post at the National Review without mentioning the news, which was broken by the Guardian.

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