DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers announced compelling new evidence that human industrial activity is responsible for global warming.

The Chronicle’s Science Editor, David Perlman, who is such a legend that he has journalism awards named after him, summarized the findings in a piece headlined New global warming evidence presented Scientists say their observations prove industry is to blame:

But records show that for the past 50 years or so, the warming trend has sped up — due, researchers said, to the atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases produced by everything industrial, from power plants burning fossil fuels to gas-guzzling cars — and the effects are clear.

“We were stunned by the similarities between the observations that have been recorded at sea worldwide and the models that climatologists made,” said Tim Barnett of the University of California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “The debate is over, at least for rational people. And for those who insist that the uncertainties remain too great, their argument is no longer tenable. We’ve nailed it.”

The Bush administration responded immediately by re-queuing its broken record: “The science of global climate change is uncertain,” said Bill Holbrook, spokesman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

I could have predicted this round of denials. Just two months ago, the U.S. delegation at the U.N.-sponsored International Conference on Global Warming “executed perhaps its most astonishing act of denial:”

Besides blocking all efforts to conduct substantive discussions, the U.S. allied itself with none other than Saudi Arabia in obstructing efforts to create a system of payments to help poor, low-lying island nations cope with the cost of mitigating damage related to global warming, such as rising sea levels, land erosion and increased storm damage.

A quote from Paula Dobriansky, the head of the U.S. delegation, illustrates just how far up its collective ass the Bush administration’s head is:

“Science tells us that we cannot say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided.”

Most kids learn by age three not to touch the stove. They don’t know how hot it is. They can’t say with certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of heat. But they manage their uncertainty much more effectively than Bill Holbrook, Paula Dobriansky or George W. Bush.