Margaret Wente at The Globe and Mail looks at the state of the global climate change "movement" and finds it on life support if not altogether dead. After summarizing all the scandals, shoddy science, and unseemly suppression of dissent she notes that:
None of this is to say that global warming isn't real, or that human activity doesn't play a role, or that the IPCC (Intergovernmental on Climate Change) is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren't valid. But the strategy pursued by activists (including scientists who have crossed the line into advocacy) has turned out to be fatally flawed.
By exaggerating the certainties, papering over the gaps, demonizing the skeptics and peddling tales of imminent catastrophe, they've discredited the entire climate-change movement. The political damage will be severe. As analyst Walter Russell Mead succinctly puts it: "Skeptics up, Obama down, cap-and-trade dead." That also goes for Canada, whose climate policies are inevitably tied to those of the United States.
The shame of this is that it seems undeniable that something is happening to the earth's climate, but the people tasked with determining what, exactly, it is have so discredited themselves that it will be very difficult to regain the trust necessary to take collective action if ever we do gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem.
Read the rest of Wentke's column. It's very good.
RLC