Global warming bashing

I don't often read Claire Hoy as he rarely has a viewpoint one could consider constructive and unbiased, but his column "Has the worm turned on global warming" caught my eye. Initially, I thought there might be some new twist on climate change policy at the federal level, but no, it was just another slow news day for Claire, so he rushed off another global warming-bashing article.

He should have spent a little more time checking his sources.

His main quoted proponent is Stephen McIntyre, who Claire introduces as "a former mining executive." While that may be true, depending on how you define executive, Claire doesn't tell you that Stephen McIntyre is currently a petroleum and oil exploration consultant.

Claire also doesn't tell you that the published article he's referring to was coauthored by Ross McIntrick, who is a fellow of the Fraser Institute (Canada) and a "subject matter expert" for the George Marshall Institute (United States), and that these two organizations have, over the past few years, received over $1 million of funding from ExxonMobil for research on climate change. Claire doesn't tell you that these articles were in non-peer-reviewed publications, and that our own National Research Council disagrees with the conclusions.

In an apparent attempt to add credibility to his own article, Claire references supporting comments from Lorne Gunter, a contributor to the National Post, and Rush Limbaugh, an American evangelical telejournalist, both of whom are avowed "neo-cons" - that puts them in the same league with George W., Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, 'Scooter' Libby, Alberto Gonzales, etc. etc.

It really must have been a slow news day!

Andy Priede Hamlet of Claude