Thought It Might Come In Handy

On May 8 I parked a link to Little Green Footballs pointing to a story about a Canadian documentary that couldn't get aired up there. The story was written by Garth Pritchard at Canadian Free Press, who related his encounter with a scientist representing the group backing the documenary. The documentary explained that thousands of scientists believe it has not been established that global warming is the result of human activity. Mainstream media often repeats the opposite as established fact, but it is not. And now that there's a story broken by the New York Times about alleged politically inspired editing of U.S. government environmental reports, the question came up at today's White House press briefing:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I -- go back and look at what the scientific community said about that 10-year plan on climate science, and what the National Academies of Science said. And I point you back to the very first question you brought up when you talked about how there's some dispute that there are uncertainties regarding the science of climate of change. Q That they are serious, that there -- MR. McCLELLAN: Right -- Q -- that there's uncertainty about the fact of global warming, and that there's a significant human component to it. The consensus is in.

Well, pick your consensus and run with it. Pritchard at Canada Free Press on May 7:

...Then I found out what their documentary was about. The story was incredible: it documented scientists--from Canada--speaking out against the $10-billion scam known as the Kyoto Protocol.... ...here were tens of thousands, from around the world, all agreeing on one issue: that there is no scientific evidence of man-made global warming. The numbers of scientists staggered me--17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two thirds with advanced degrees, are against the Kyoto Agreement. The Heidelberg Appeal--which states that there is no scientific evidence for man-made global warming, has been signed by over 4,000 scientists from around the world since the petition’s inception. I strongly questioned these high numbers, since I’ve had benefit of the Canadian government’s public relations machine on this issue. Dr. Leahey has since sent documentation to back his figures up.

Remember this the next time you read something about the scientific consensus about global warming. Of course the reporter querying McClellan raised the essential issue:

Q But, Scott, you're clearly -- I mean, the United States is -- and I'm not making a judgment about this -- is out of step with other countries in the world, in terms of the existence of climate change and the causes of it.

Oh horror. The reporter adds that "the debate is clear," by which he means the consensus is clear. And the consensus is clear to the extent that we pretend there is a consenus.