The Idiocy of Rex Murphy

On the May 16th airing of The National, Rex Murphy decided to make a complete fool of himself by making his usual pseudo-intellectual attempt at serious commentary on important issues. The important issues at hand were the gun registry and the Kyoto Protocol. While his opinions on the gun registry were misguided, they were not completely dishonest. However, he committed massive intellectual dishonesty with the following statement:

Now, Kyoto is not a registry, but it has the same impulse at its centre, vagueness of intention surrounding an amorphous good cause. The science is contentious, regardless of what the propagandists of global warning will tell you. It is advocacy-driven and as much a lobby as General Motors. (Author's emphasis)

Contentious, you say? My, aren't we scientifically illiterate? Maybe poor old Rex worked himself into a stupor by reading the trash that Bjorn Lomborg has been publishing recently or whatever tripe is being forwarded by such respectable journals as Oil & Gas Monthly (nothing like corporate mouthpieces to get the straight goods, eh?). Of course, if good old Mr. Murphy could be bothered to properly inform himself by talking to actual scientists or reading the scientific literature on the subject, perhaps he would discover that the science is not at all contentious. Global warming is a fact. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), temperatures have already risen 0.4 to 0.8 degrees Centigrade in the last century or so. In addition, the best models on climate have demonstrated that natural causes of global warming are insufficient in causing the increases, but natural causes along with anthropogenic causes would be able to. In fact, the recent increases in temperature are modelled quite well by just taking into account anthropogenic causes, indicating that natural sources of global warming are minimally contributing to the recent spike in temperatures. If current trends continue as they most likely will, then one can expect surface temperatures to rise 1.2 to 3.5 degrees in the next century, causing massive climate change.

Ah well, maybe next week Rexy boy will declare that the science behind evolution and the theory of relativity are "contentious".