In the pocket of the dandelion lobby

I HAD ALWAYS thought that nobody had a lower opinion than I as to the analytical capacities of the American public. Then I discovered the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The institute is a conservative think tank in Washington that is less embarrassed than most conservative think tanks about raking in gobs of money from oil companies and propagating views that happen to comport precisely with those of their donors. It has been running ads attempting to cast doubt on the notion that fossil fuels bear any relation to global warming.

The oil companies’ -- sorry, I mean the institute’s -- approach to this challenge is to make people think fondly of carbon dioxide. It turns out to be a deeply misunderstood molecule. “We breathe it out,” a narrator explains in one ad. “Plants breathe it in.” We see an image of a young girl in pigtails blowing on a dandelion. The ad proceeds to explain that all this good stuff faces some sinister, amorphous peril. “Now, some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed. What will our lives be like then?” Plants will suffocate for lack of carbon dioxide! Little girls blowing on dandelions will be thrown into prison!

Can anybody actually believe this?

I can see why the ads would identify the enemy as “politicians” (rather than scientists). But what motive would these politicians have to attack a harmless little molecule? Do they hate plants? Are they in the pocket of the dandelion lobby?

The ads don’t say. The concept is so unpersuasive, even on its own terms, I can’t believe that Americans are stupid enough to fall for it. People may be dumb, but if they were that dumb, the world would be a different place. There would be thousands of technicians on call to help us operate our flush toilets. Emergency rooms would be filled with people who attempted to clean out their earwax with steak knives.

No, I prefer to believe that most people aren’t incapacitatingly stupid, only extremely stupid. That seems to be President Bush’s belief as well. Take, for instance, his statement May 24 on the same topic: “People in our country are rightly concerned about greenhouse gases and the environment, and I can understand why -- I am too. As a matter of fact, I try to tell people, let’s quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by natural causes; let’s just focus on technologies that deal with the issue.”

Now, this is the kind of inanity that can get past the public. Indeed, it can get past the White House press corps as well. I couldn’t find a single major newspaper that considered the implications of the comment. If you think about it, though, it’s an astounding statement.

For one thing, Bush has hardly been a disinterested observer in this debate. Fred Barnes reported that Bush held a long meeting with Michael Crichton, who regards global warming as a massive hoax -- a viewpoint upon which the two “were in near-total agreement.” When the Environmental Protection Agency submitted a report on heat-trapping gases in 2002, Bush openly sneered at “a report put out by the bureaucracy.” The next year the administration censored another EPA report on global warming. This is a puzzling time for Bush to piously declare that we shouldn’t bother debating the facts.

Even if you weren’t aware of all that, Bush’s logic was nonsensical. The debate over whether greenhouse gas buildup is natural or man-made can’t just be put aside. Either burning fossil fuels is making the Earth warmer, or it’s not. If it is, we need to burn less of it. If burning fossil fuels is not making the Earth warmer, then burning less won’t solve the problem. Bush’s line is like saying, “Let’s just quit the debate over whether Natalee Holloway is missing and just focus on ways to find her.”

The implication of Bush’s greenhouse comment is that even if you don’t think carbon dioxide emissions are contributing to global warming, we should limit them anyway.

Of course, Bush’s proposals to “deal with the issue” would barely make a dent in the problem. So his argument may be a big gob of nonsense, but at least he’s not insulting our intelligence.