The latest member of our blog team (Alex Vondette, yay!!!), dredged up this Amy Ridenour post from earlier this month, another infuriating example of the circular argument that serves to promote paralysis in climate change policy making.

The argument – typical of the dissemblers – is that climate change isn’t real; and if it is real, Kyoto is a pointlessly inadequate response. Ergo, anyone who argues in favour of its implementation is a champagne swilling liberal environmentalist living off the avails of carefully peer-reviewed government research grants.

Some of the foregoing actually makes sense. Kyoto is a hopelessly inadequate response to climate change: but, as the saying goes, the first thing to do when you’re trying to get out of a pit is to stop digging.

No one is arguing that this is easy, and no one is arguing that Kyoto will be enough. We just hope, as a first order of business, that George Bush and company will stop handing out shovels.