It's amazing how persistent the "Quonset hut" canard is with the anti-global warming/anti-environmentalist types. Today we have Gregory Scoblete at TCS daily propagating the BS. Only this time, it's toilet paper.

Gore's hyper-alarmism (the planet has a fever!) has been taken to its logical conclusion by Beavan's "no impact" project. Rather than try to convince people and policy-makers to accept moderate changes in the name of reducing our output of carbon dioxide, addressing global warming is presented as an urgent choice between accepting planetary death or life-altering sacrifice. Since these sacrifices all tend to favor policies that liberals support anyway (a heavier regulatory burden, higher taxes, more home made yogurt), conservatives tend to react with suspicion.

Maybe they shouldn't, but if you believe, as Chait evidently does, that global warming is a serious threat meriting sweeping government action, shouldn't you be training your fire on people like Colin Beavan? Question for Chait: if people think that minimizing global warming requires giving up toilet paper, are you more or less likely to win converts?

See the false dichotomy? If you believe Gore, or what Jonathan Chait wrote for the LA Times last week, soon you will be deprived of your toilet paper and every modern convenience. We'll all be living in quonset huts!

No one is saying this. The fact that some guy in New York is testing out a no-impact life doesn't mean, for an instant, that that is the solution being advocated by those studying global warming, and it certainly isn't what Al Gore advocated last week when he testified in front of congress. Enough of the exaggerations already.

Labels: global warming denialism