John’s comment seems to miss the first point that Clive Crooks makes:

“By way of preamble, let me remind you where I stand on climate change. I think climate science points to a risk that the world needs to take seriously. I think energy policy should be intelligently directed towards mitigating this risk. I am for a carbon tax.”

If one wants to ignore or belittle the problem because climate scientists are fallible human beings who have behaved in predictable, defensive ways after being personally attacked for two decades, this seems to me to be self-defeating.

Also The Atlantic has not been a “liberal publication” since Mort Zuckerman bought it in 1980. Zuckerman is a DLC-type Democrat, not a liberal. He sold the magazine to David Bradley in 1999; Bradley is a self described “neo-con.”

Clive Crooks’ entire journalistic career has been with centrist or center-right or right-wing publications, particularly The Economist.

As does Crooks, the editors of The Economist believe that global warming is likely a human-created phenomenon and that humans would be wise to respond to this with a dramatic reduction in carbon emissions. Conservatives in Great Britain are seemingly not infected with the hysteria and paranoia currently gripping our so-called conservatives.

By the way June 2010 is the hottest month ever recorded on the planet both for land and water temperatures.