The latest member of our blog team (Alex Vondette, yay!!!), dredged up this Amy Ridenour post [1] from earlier this month, another infuriating example of the circular argument that serves to promote paralysis in climate change policy making.

The argument -- typical of the dissemblers -- is that climate change isn't real; and if it is real, Kyoto is a pointlessly inadequate response. Ergo, anyone who argues in favour of its implementation is a champagne swilling liberal environmentalist living off the avails of carefully peer-reviewed government research grants.

Some of the foregoing actually makes sense. Kyoto is a hopelessly inadequate response to climate change: but, as the saying goes, the first thing to do when you're trying to get out of a pit is to stop digging.

No one is arguing that this is easy, and no one is arguing that Kyoto will be enough. We just hope, as a first order of business, that George Bush and company will stop handing out shovels.