“… the Alberta government’s assumption that humans are responsible for global warming might be on the verge of being downgraded, revised or even discredited.”

Mark Milke, National Post, July 16, 2008

Equally, we might be on the verge of discovering evidence of an intelligent underground dinosaur culture living on Mars – but I don’t think so.

There was a time – apparently past – when newspapers would endeavour to fact check a reasonable portion of what they present in their pages. There was a time, for example, when a reporter canvassing a “range” of opinion would identify the consensus presented by best experts – the most reliable sources – and then, if liberally inclined, cover off all the goofy fringe opinions just for good measure.

Milke, a “senior analyst” for the right-wingy Frontier Centre for Public Policy, instead offers this:

“…the world’s top scientists have a plethora of informed opinion on the subject: They range from the possibility that humans caused a modest and beneficial rise in temperatures to the possibility that the Earth may have already entered a significant cooling phase similar to the last Little Ice Age.”

So, “the world’s top scientists,” (as carefully selected by Lawrence Solomon) believe that climate change is either a good thing, or it’s not happening at all.

You could dismiss this as rampant stupidity or ideological madness if it weren’t being presented as reasonable opinion on the pages of a national flyer. But there is, perhaps, a greater shame. Buried in this nonsense is some quite reasonable analysis of the Alberta government’s plan to dump $2 billion into an oil industry subsidy called carbon capture and storage. Milke, it turns out, is actually capable of making sense out of a complicated issue.

It’s a shame he doesn’t make it a habit.