Is Myron a climate change denier?

Myron Ebell's trip to Copenhagen proved to be only slightly less useless than Senator Jim Inhofe's. Inhofe famously flew into the city, stuck his head out of the window, shouted "Hoax!", and flew all the way back home again.

Myron, on the other hand, stuck around a little bit to soak up the atmosphere for the purpose of regurgitating rotten lies about it for the rest of the year.

He was interviewed by Kim Parlee for the Business News Network. Parlee is [sadly] exceptional among TV reporters because she actually prepared for this interview!!! The transcript of the interview is as follows:

Parlee: I'm joined by here by Myron Ebell. He is the director for global warming fraudulence at the Crackpot Enterprise Institute, and probably best known for being a climate change denier. Is that a proper way of classifying you?

Ebell: Well, we don't deny that global warming is happening, or that climate changes. We just don't think that it's a big problem. We think it's a very modest problem that's; we don't really need 45,000 people flying to Copenhagen to try to solve it. Of course, they're not solving it, but we think it's unnecessary.

Parlee: Well you said before that global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the EU and the rest of the world to harm America's economy. Do you still believe that?

Ebell: [speaking slowly] We believe that global warming is used to create a regulatory framework to impoverish the richer nations. I think the context of me saying that global warming is a hoax was not fully captured by that quote. What we think is, not that global warming isn't happening, it's not a crisis that demands that we turn the whole world's economy upside down, and, of course, the richer countries to become considerably poorer, and force the poor countries to stay poor. We think that in fact if global warming turns out to be a big problem, the whole process going in here in Copenhagen, that started in Kyoto in '97, is a dead end. It's a very expensive, very destructive dead end that will be much worse than global warming. We believe that is global warming is a problem, the way to solve it is through technological innovation and creativity. And the most technologically capable societies are not the ones that are regulated to death, they're the ones that are free-markets that allow people to do things that invent things.

Parlee: Now having said what I said about the conference, looking like no solution is going to happen, amazing things happen when presidents and prime ministers fly in, and they may pull...

Ebell: A rabbit out of the hat.

Parlee: It might be a weak emaciated rabbit, but it will still be a rabbit. So it means it could happen here.

Ebell: Sure, you never know when people get together to negotiate. That's right.

Parlee: So what kind of agreement could we come up with if that's the case? Does that worry you that an agreement might come, when it might not be the kind of agreement that you want to see. You don't want to see any agreement.

Ebell: Well, I think the people who oppose energy rationing, like me, got very lucky with Kyoto in '97 because, at the time it was negotiated, it was absolutely dead in the United States senate. It would never be ratified. It doesn't matter who was president. The senate would never ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Even Senator John Kerry, who is here today, gave a speech a little while ago. John Kerry blamed president Bush when he ran against him in 2004 for the presidency, he blamed him for not being involved in the Kyoto process. But then when asked, he said, Oh sure if Kyoto came to the floor of the Senate, I would vote against ratification. So I think it's quite likely if some rabbit were pulled out of the hat here, it would probably again be a gift to us, and not to the people who want to ration energy. It will probably be dead in the United States congress as soon as it's negotiated. I think the only way the United States will get involved in this is to let the congress decide what to do, and take that to the international bargaining table, not take an international treaty and then take it to congress and say you have to do this. That's not the way our political system works.

Parlee: I've only got 30 seconds, but I have to ask you. The EPA has just come out and said that carbon dioxide is a dangerous substance. How did that ruling make you feel?

Ebell: We challenged that ruling as it was going along, and we announced the day that it went final that we will file suit in Federal Court to overturn it.

Parlee: And in terms of Copenhagen, what is the ideal outcome in terms of what you want?

Ebell: The ideal outcome would be to step back and say, Look, we've been on this Kyoto road since '97, and it's clearly not working to reduce emissions. What's reduced emissions in the last year is the global economic downturn. This process is not reducing emissions. Why don't we step back and figure out why it isn't working, instead of continuing to plough ahead into what is obviously a dead end. I'm a sort of obstinate driver and I often keep driving even though I know in the back of my mind I'm going in the wrong direction and I really need to stop and look at the map. I think they need to stop and look at the map.

Parlee: Myron Ebell, thank you for joining with us.

Next question (for which there unfortunately wasn't time):

So, Myron, what is the wrong with the process, and how do you think it would be made to work then, eh? If you knew it wouldn't work, you wouldn't be here.

Also, I'd like to have seen a little more quizzing on what he thinks is exactly happening to the climate? When will the north pole be ice free? What the hell does he know about anything, once he has discounted the testimony from everyone who does?

And while we're at it, exactly what technology is going to save our asses when climate change turns out to be the problem as predicted, and we become as frightened as we are when we are diagnosed with cancer -- in the way that we are not when we take risks with cancer.

All I have ever heard in terms of technological advances in five years of following this bonehead's unwarranted media exposure is the astounding innovation of being able to turn off six of the eight cylinders in his fat sport ute when it is idling in a traffic jam.

This is most crap. If we're going to stand for Myron Ebell betting our lives on as-yet, totally uninvented faith-based technologies, to be developed by the very same scientific intellectuals who are telling us that there is a big problem, we ought to require him to know more about technology than the absolutely pitiful knowledge he has of economics.

I expect my priests to have seen the bible before they preach our salvation on the basis of it.