NY Times: ManBearPig isn't real

The Times did not deny that global warming exists, far from it (but were that the case you'd just have to get a little bit suspicious). What they did say, though, was that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was not entirely, well, true.

“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”

How weak is the science of global warming?

Still, Dr. Hansen said, the former vice president’s work may hold “imperfections” and “technical flaws.” He pointed to hurricanes, an icon for Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will cause both storm frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the United States.

That last sentence basically said that forecasters predicted 9 out of the last 5 hurricanes. That's the standard joke about economists - they've predicted 9 of the last 5 recessions. Heck, if this stuff isn't better than macroeconomic theory, then screw it.