By Jim Pedersen, Guest Columnist in Seattle PI.com

Can a reputable scientist be a “denier?” If the evidence of man-caused global warming is as overwhelming as the left claims it is, why the lack of rational, intelligent public debate between qualified people of opposing views? Doesn’t this make more sense than believers simply brushing off deniers? Given the chance, wouldn’t believers want to publicly articulate their overwhelming scientific evidence and silence the naysayers or “deniers” once and for all?

The reason this hasn’t happened is because the science is not settled. Man-caused global warming isn’t scientific fact; it’s an article of faith for the left—the stuff of belief. In the realm of global warming, environmentalism has become a faith-based movement not unlike Christianity. There is a sad irony to this situation. Nobody with any common sense wants to destroy the environment. Christians believe that God made us stewards over this planet, and he will hold us responsible for our actions toward it. Christians want a nice world for their children to grow up in, too.

Before we pass laws that ruin economies and do real and immediate harm to people, let’s get to the bottom of this problem. It’s supposed to be about science and the stakes are high. Man-caused global warming must be established and proven by the scientific method. Anything less is alarmist and irresponsible. If believers and deniers are certain of their positions, they should embrace this opportunity. See full column here.

By Chris Horner

The gang over at DailyKos are upset that Marc Morano, Senate Republican Communications Director for the Environment and Public Works Committee is . . . communicating with the public. This objection raises questions about NASA employees like James Hansen - purportedly “muzzled” for being told, not to stop speaking to the public, but to speak to science and leave policy to the policy people; and spokesman Gavin Schmidt - who regularly posts over at RealClimate on the taxpayer dime (and presumably using other taxpayer resources, as well, if his times of posting are any indication: What, again, is that reason that Executive branch employees aren’t supposed to access private email accounts from work?).

So, to put it gently, Morano is to be muzzled to stop him from performing a specific function of his employment; meanwhile, you and I are to pay people for doing things that are outside of their job description. Welcome (yet again) to the world of global-warming double standards.

Christopher C. Horner serves as a Senior Fellow at CEI. As an attorney in Washington, DC Horner has represented CEI as well as scientists and Members of the U.S. House and Senate on matters of environmental policy in the federal courts including the Supreme Court. He has written on numerous topics in publications ranging from law reviews to legal and industrial trade journals to print and online opinion pages, and is the author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism” (Regnery, 2007), which spent half of 2007 on the New York Times bestseller list. He frequently posts in Planet Gore and this is where this piece appeared today.

Wall Street Journal Review and Outlook

Global warming is becoming a new unified field theory for environmentalists, a crisis so urgent and profound that it even justifies leaping the democratic process. Consider the political campaign to prod the Bush Administration to list the polar bear as an endangered species—even though many proponents admit it isn’t endangered at all. This game began with a 2005 lawsuit against the Interior Department from pressure groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council. Their demand was that the polar bear be designated as “threatened”—that is, at risk for extinction in the foreseeable future—under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The problem is that polar bear populations have been rising over the last four decades, and may now be at an historic high.

The logical—and dangerous—leap here is that the greens are attempting to rewrite the Endangered Species Act without actual legislation. If the “iconic” polar bear is classified as threatened, and the harm is formally attributed to warming caused by humans, then their gambit could lead to all sorts of regulatory mischief. Another political goal is to use an “endangered” bear listing to tie up in the courts a modest sale of oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea 25 to 200 miles off the coast of Alaska, scheduled for February 6. Read more here.