In the wake of the world's leading authority on climate change definitively concluding that global warming is happening and caused by humans, professional global warming deniers are flailing, and it's hilarious to watch.
Over at TomPaine.com, Clean Air Watch's Frank O'Donnell finds that Sen. James Inhofe, the "Senate’s resident crackpot on global warming finally seems to have—well, cracked up," after witnessing a bizarre exchange he had on CNN last week.
Today's amusement comes from LA Times columnist Jonah Goldberg.
Not being as unbalanced as Sen. Inhofe, he won't quite say global warming isn't a problem.
All he'll say is fighting it will cost money. So he tries to argue the best strategy for now is to wait:
Frankly, I don't think the trade-off is worth it — yet. The history of capitalism and technology tells us that what starts out expensive and arduous becomes cheap and easy over time. Lewis and Clark took months to do what a truck carrying Tickle-Me Elmos does every week. Technology 10 years from now could solve global warming at a fraction of today's costs. What technologies? I don't know.
What Jonah also might not know is that Lewis and Clark were not private entrepenuers, but government-funded explorers, picked by President Thomas Jefferson and financed by Congress.
To the extent technology can combat global warming, we of course to need to pool our resources and fully fund the research and development, so advancements can happen as fast as possible, and we can reap the returns.
And there's plenty we can do now to conserve and employ the technology we already have. Check out the Apollo Alliance for more.
Fortunately, it would seem the public is done listening to people who proudly don't know what it is they are talking about.
