I have three things to say about this “issues analysis” from RenewAmerica columnist Fred Hutchison, who claims global warming is a crock:

First of all, does this strike anyone else as a bit too coincidental?

Readers who wish to try the smell test might go to any Environmentalist or Global Warming interactive web site with an intelligent criticism and see if they can get an intelligent answer. If the Global Warming advocates flunk the smell test, should one join with Horatio and say “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”? Not at all. If we jump to hasty conclusions, we become just as bad as the partisans of junk science.

Environmentalist or Global Warming interactive web site? “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark“? This is obviously a direct attack on Grist!Second of all, can anyone tell me what the hell he’s talking about? Smell? What?

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Third and most distressing, Hutchison claims:

The burden of proof lies with those who claim that CO2 gas has a greenhouse effect, because they have presented no understandable mechanism or process that explains how CO2 gas in the atmosphere increases heat on earth. The greenhouse metaphor that is successful for water droplets in clouds appears to be a failure when applied to CO2 gas. If we receive evasions instead of answers and explanations from scientists on this crucial question, we have a right to conclude that global warming theory does not make sense, and we can consign it to the accumulating heap of junk science, along with the discarded theory of global cooling of thirty years ago.

Hey — I’m an editorial intern, not a scientist. Is he right? Is there no understandable mechanism or process that explains how carbon dioxide contributes to global warming? Because I want to believe in climate change, Virginia, and I want ol’ Fred to believe too. I need a Gristy scientist to assuage this turmoil that Fred has thrown me into. Anyone? Anyone?