For those of you who find such things interesting, there’s a nice, link-rich discussion of Kyoto, fossil fuels, free-market Greenery, etc., going on in the comments section of this LGF post.

The original post points to Cap’n Den Beste’s piece on the philosophy of environmentalism (which I’ve previously linked to) — a piece that got Poorman’s Andrew Northrup* all kinds of exercised.

I’m one of those skeptics who looks at the global warming issue this way: yes, the earth is warming, no, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it by way of regulation or conservation. I’m with UVA Environmental Science Prof. Patrick Michaels on this, who believes that “It is entirely possible that human influence on the atmosphere is not necessarily deleterious and that it is simply another component of the dynamic planet. Tomorrow’s scientific and science-policy leaders will have to recognize this verity in our attempts to maintain a productive and diverse planet.” He’s also quite skeptical about computer modeling as an accurate predictor of climate change.

Cleaner-burning energy sources are coming — but they’ll arrive sooner if we don’t burden our economy (the very thing that drives such advancement in technologies) with a tangle of ill-conceived regulations engendered by questionable science.

Related: “Imagine No Restrictions On Fossil-Fuel Usage And No Global Warming,” from Science Daily, April 15.

*[update: By the way, Northrup is one of the funniest bloggers out there. Another is Tony Woodlief. Ditto the guys at We Are Full of Shit. If you’re not in the habbit of visiting these sites, you’re missing out.

Not to mention pro-European, pro-UN, and a vegan.]

[update the second: Northrup calls me a bunch of names and makes fun of me here. The short of it is, he points out that my phrase “questionable science” is redundant, in that all science is questionable by nature. Tortured sophistry! Context-puller! I believe it was clear in the post, but I’ll be more specific: By “questionable science,” I was speaking of the questionable use some computer modeled projections — themselves based on flawed methodology, according to many scientists — are put to in support of dubious public policy.

Now then.]