Global Warming: Cretaceous Quote-Mining

There's nothing more grating for a science writer than see your work get cut and pasted to give people precisely the wrong impression. My latest irritation: "Ten Questions For Al Gore and the Global Warming Crowd", which appeared Friday on the conservative web site Townhall.com. The author is John Hawkins, who describes himself as a professional blogger who runs Right Wing News. Hawkins claims that he is skeptical that humans are causing global warming because, in his words, "'the Earth-is-going-to-burn-us-alive' crowd cannot answer the most basic questions about the theory that they haughtily insist is so beyond reproach that there should be no more need for debate." He then offers ten questions for the "global warming crowd," claiming that "if the proponents of the manmade global warming theory can come up with good answers to questions like these, you can expect everyone, including me, to accept their theory." Questions seem ...