Steven Hayward on global warming

Here from the Heritage Foundation (April 18) is a useful resource if your friends all think that Al Gore is "Seal of the Prophets" of Global Warming: the soundtrack of an engaging film by Steven Hayward, "An Inconvenient Truth . . . or Convenient Fiction", followed by questions from a live audience and responses by Dr. Hayward. (Direct link to MP3 (27 MB) here. Video version also available.) Hayward rapidly summarizes many of the scientific uncertainties while remaining fairly comprehensible. He seems more moderate on the issue than many in his conservative-thinktank audience, seeing some room for compromise with environmentalists in the form of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, which would not, he thinks, much hurt the economy even if it proved to be unnecessary from an environmental point of view, and which would also be a good way of reducing American dependence on foreign oil. A point he made that struck me was that Gore has apparently deliberately omitted mention of the nuclear approach to cutting greenhouse gases, yet at the same time trumpets global warming as a catastrophe. If Gore really meant this, Hayward delicately hints, he would not be so picky about the ways to head off that catastrophe. So it seems reasonable to conclude that Gore is trying to scare people with hyperbole he does not himself believe.