Warming? What planet are you on?

If you've read my blog long, you know I'm not exactly convinced about global warming. Too much contradictory "evidence," sketchy research/PR methods, blah blah blah. This Telegraph piece expresses my thoughts nicely with this charming story:

As to what planet Mr Bush is on, he's not on Pluto but on planet Goofy, a strange lost world where it's perfectly normal for apparently sane people to walk around protesting about global warming in sub-zero temperatures. Or, as the Canadian Press reported: "Montreal - tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming."

Unfortunately, no one had supplied an updated weather forecast to the fellow who writes the protesters' chants. So, to the accompaniment of the obligatory pseudo-ethnic drummers, the shivering eco-warriors sang: "It's hot in here! There's too much carbon in the atmosphere!" Is this the first sign of the "New Ice Age" the media warned us about last week?

Heh. That's just too much. Like I've said before, they like to move the goalposts. If it's hotter, it's because of global warming. If it's colder, that is also because of global warming. Ironic, no?

Typically, they like to throw statistics around, like how some uninhabited arctic glaciers have shrunk by 0.0027% in the last year, or how the average temperature (whatever that means) in Antarctica has risen 0.05ºC since 1992. But that just doesn't mean everything, because their own statistics sometimes work against their point:

In the past third of a century, the American economy has swollen by 150 per cent, automobile traffic has increased by 143 per cent, and energy consumption has grown 45 per cent. During this same period, air pollutants have declined by 29 per cent, toxic emissions by 48.5 per cent, sulphur dioxide levels by 65.3 per cent, and airborne lead by 97.3 per cent. Despite signing on to Kyoto, European greenhouse gas emissions have increased since 2001, whereas America's emissions have fallen by nearly one per cent, despite the Toxic Texan's best efforts to destroy the planet.

Read the entire thing. It makes fantastic points.