We call it lies

This is almost funny. The "Competitive Enterprise" Institute, an oil-industry advocacy group, has produced an advert extolling the virtues of carbon dioxide and scorning global warming science as a nasty smear campaign against the maligned molecule. "It's natural," explains the announcer. "We breathe it out. Plants breathe it in." "They call it pollution," she laments. "We call it life."

The notion that any byproduct of the human or animal body, even in industrial quantities, is inherently a safe and desirable thing, intrigues me. Take faeces, for instance. It's natural. We excrete it. Plants flourish in it. By the CEI's logic, therefore, there should be no impediment to collecting vast lorryloads of slurry and dumping them any old where, say on Myron Ebell's lawn.

There must also be some great opportunities for parody ads along similar lines. I suggest the tag line, "They call it organic fertiliser. We call it bullshit."