A tortured post by Ian Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute concludes that “The Kyoto Protocol, which (Al) Gore enthusiastically supports, would avert less than a tenth of a degree of warming in the next fifty years.”

I take from this:

1. That the CEI acknowledges warming is occurring.

2. That it finds the Kyoto protocol inadequate to the challenge.

This acknowledgment comes at the end of a long list of quibbles over the gathering evidence that CO2 is, in fact, a significant contributor to climate change. But the argument in total suggests that Murray is fighting valliantly – if hopelessly – against the prospect of acknowledging that Al Gore (while undoubtedly irritating to Murray’s libertarian buddies) is right.

The U.S. Academies of Science thinks so. BP and Shell Oil think so. Murray can clutch at whatever insubstantial straws he likes, but he’s fighting for a losing team. The only question is how long the desperate denial that he and his energy industry backers promote will delay an intelligent response.