Credibility problem

OK, let's make this very simple. The problem with a think tank like the AEI isn't how they do what they do, it's that it's so transparent their primary motivation is to block any and all policy proposals that involve conservation, no matter how sensible and unobtrusive the proposal might be.

"Climate Inquisition"?? Gimme a break!

One article in the Guardian exposes their proposed honorarium and in response they go about trashing Ellen Goodman:

Distinguished climatologist Ellen Goodman spelled out the implication in her widely syndicated newspaper column last week: "Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers."

Leaving aside the unfortunate Holocaust comments, what she argues for actually kinda jives with AEI's position to cool down the alarmist tone in the debate. They bring up the case of George Taylor:

Just this week politicians in Oregon and Delaware stepped up calls for the dismissal of their state's official climatologists, George Taylor and David Legates, solely on the grounds of their public dissent from climate orthodoxy.

No, in Oregon at least it was just a matter of changeing who gets to appoint the "state climatologist," OSU or the governor's office. Taylor continues to have the same job. Next, they cite three writers who have written articles they would generally agree with.

I've not even brought up their reference to the debunked Monckton analysis, but let's get to the point: where is the so-called "inquisition"? The fact that AEI criticizes the policy proposals of others is generally a good thing for our society. It's healthy to have policy debates. The problem is that AEI by and large doesn't provide enough coherent meaningful alternatives of their own.

I realize that's an enormous generalization, but devoting significant resources to eternal critique of policy proposals does not substitute for having your own. More credibility for AEI amongst the science, environmental and business communities will result not from doomsday scenarios of how the world economy will collapse and millions will perish if we limit carbon emissions, but from real alternative proposals that address the issue of man's influence on climate change.