Regular Lies

Eric Von Haessler's opinion columns in Atlanta's alternative-alternative weekly, The Sunday Paper, are appalling.

I don't mind that he disagrees with me. I mind that he disagrees with himself and expects that his readers are too stupid to notice.

"It’s possible, but not certain, that things are heating up a bit, but there is no evidence that we’re causing it or that we are facing certain doom if it is true.

That’s right, no evidence."

That's from Eric's February 11 column mocking the idea that Al Gore should be lauded for drawing attention to global warming. Global warming is a myth, Eric says, therefore praising Gore is like praising Chicken Little for predicting that the sky is falling.

In today's edition of The Sunday Paper, Eric criticizes Al Gore again. This time, believe it or not, it's because Gore isn't dedicated enough to solving global warming.

Writes Eric:

"Never mind our homes that use more energy in a month than the average household uses in a year, say the Gores. Pay no attention to the exhaust emitted from the private jet craft we charter to hop from one global warming summit to another. Don’t worry your pretty little heads over the seeming hypocrisy between our words and our actions because we’ve purchased carbon offsets, and that makes everything hunky-dory.

Isn’t that convenient? The rich get to buy their way out of this while everyone else is forced to actually change their way of life in order to solve the problem. (emphasis mine)

Down the page a bit, he repeats the trick.

It turns out that planting a tree in one place doesn’t have the same effect if it’s planted somewhere else. In fact, some new planting can have the perverse consequence of temporarily worsening the problem by releasing carbon that was formerly trapped within the undisturbed soil before it was pierced by shovel and good intentions. (emphasis mine)

In short, Eric Von Haessler's position on global warming is that it doesn't exist, but that Al Gore and his friends aren't doing enough to stop it. It makes no sense.

And then, of course, there's the fact that there is indeed plenty of evidence that global warming is happening and that man is causing it. But that's not important now. First things first. Befor we get Eric to agree with climate scientists, we need to get him to agree with himself.