Dear Bret,

You almost had me there, until I read this:

Today these groups form a kind of ecosystem of their own. They include not just old standbys like the Sierra Club or Greenpeace, but also Ozone Action, Clean Air Cool Planet, Americans for Equitable Climate Change Solutions, the Alternative Energy Resources Association, the California Climate Action Registry and so on and on. All of them have been on the receiving end of climate change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe in the existence of God.

Eh, yeah...if you're going to cite the entire federal, state and private research apparatus, international funding agencies, every dime that doesn't get spent on gasoline or coal, and every environmental organization known to mankind, you might want to include in your comparison the fact that besides donations to think tanks, Exxon corporation itself and its employees and executives donate money to politicians, and Exxon has a PAC. Meanwhile, Aspen Institute, the Asia Society, Transparency International, the Heritage Institute and the National Center for Policy Analysis aren't the only "free-market" think tanks in Washington and Exxon isn't the only oil, gas, coal, auto-manufacturing, utility, aircraft-manufacturing, trucking, busing, etc., company donating money to organizations that don't need to actually do any of their own research; they just need to come up with fact-like sound bytes that sow doubt. Finally, hidden subsidies, such as the fact that the gasoline tax isn't enough to pay for roads also tend to help rather than hurt these industries.

But I'm sure all that doesn't amount to much compared to all the money Al Gore will make.