Alternet Gets It

There's an interesting piece over at Alternet this week. It's about the EPA lawsuit taking place right now over whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be counted as "pollutants" under the Clean Air Act. I just wanted to highlight Alternet's succinct summation of our whole raison d'etre here at the DeSmogBlog:

There is a debate over whether [climate change is] manmade or naturally caused," Bush said yesterday. Yet among scientists, the debate has long been over. Rather than argue the science, the right has resorted to manufacturing scientific doubt where there is none. ... The right wants the public to ignore scientific research that finds "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming," and instead believe that we should wait for more research before we take action.

Well put. While our axe to grind is less with "the right" and more on the PR tactics that are used to manufacture doubt, wherever they come from, we are appreciative of their making the point. As for the lawsuit itself... the issue is that if it's determined that greenhouse gases are not pollutants, then the Bush administration would not have to regulate those emissions under the Clean Air Act. And it actually seems a distracting argument, because even if carbon dioxide isn't a "pollutant" (as the CIE argued in their now-infamous and clearly ridiculous ads), it's certainly a problem that requires regulation. Arguing about the definition of a pollutant is not the point. Spin is everywhere in this debate.