The scientific debate may be "over" in the words of those eager to grasp the levers of power offered by popular fears of global warming, but the political debate rages on. The US House Energy Committee's is currently conducting hearings on Dr. Michael Mann's famous "hockey stick" graph of millennial temperatures that I discussed in an earlier Daily Article. It seems that a report it commissioned from a group led by Statistician Edward J. Wegman of George Mason University debunks Mann's study completely, and we are treated to the sight of Congress spending taxpayer funds to conduct studies to tear apart studies that other agencies of the government spent taxpayer funds to conduct in the first place.
Even if all this research never harms us, as it will if anything like Al Gore's anti-global-warming proposals get enacted into law, the best we can hope for is that by double and triple spending, we may manage to negate all the spending and end up no worse off (but for the spending) than we were before the research.
The Wall Street Journal's coverage (subscription required?) is here, while other coverage that should be accessible to anyone is here.
