Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Both Sides of the Story...

-From FactCheck.Org

"The business-backed Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released two ads last week to "counter global warming alarmism."

One of the ads says research shows "The Antarctic ice sheet is getting thicker, not thinner. . . Why are they trying to scare us?" Actually, scientists say increased snowfall in Antarctica's interior is evidence that global warming is taking place. Scientists also say that the ice sheet is melting at the ocean's edge and a recent report says it is shrinking overall.

The ads drew a protest from a University of Missouri professor who says they are "a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate." He said one of them misuses a study he published in Science magazine last year on the Antarctic ice sheet. An editor of Science also said the ads misrepresent the findings of that study as well as a second study on Greenland's glaciers.

The second CEI ad notes that carbon dioxide (CO2) is "essential to life," and says, "they call it pollution. We call it life." That ad fails to mention that too much CO2 can cause global temperatures to rise or that there is more of it in the atmosphere than any time during the last 420,000 years.

CEI, which gets just over 9 per cent of its budget from Exxon Mobil Corporation, said it was only trying to make sure the public hears "both sides of the story."

From Me -

The concept of hearing both sides to a story is heartwarming and seemingly democratic. But in certain circumstances this idea becomes so much clap-trap. If a guy breaks into your home and then trys to rape your wife does he really have a right to have his side heard about why he should be allowed to rape your wife? This is the basic argument being used by the industrial lobby.

We want to continue to pump chemistry into the air and poison your world, and we think it is okay. Others may disagree but we have a right to be heard!

Using the dickheaded argument by CEI the husband of the woman being raped would be labeled an "alarmist" since from the rapists point of view the woman was going to be "okay".

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