Ken Hughes writes often about global warming and always indicates to those of us who know better that he knows next to nothing about the subject. He repeats often cited Conservative talking points easily enough, and expounds on topics clearly in the realm of science such as, "man can't change the climate of the planet" or "one degree in a 100 years doesn't seem all that scary", but offers no evidence to back up his claims. He correctly states that we can't know what his sources of information are, because he never cites any.

Now, if his pieces on the matter are purely his own opinion, shouldn't they at least be informed opinions in order for anyone to take them seriously? Ken goes on and on about having been in various places at various times, but does Ken really think that his own perceptions are worthy of real temperature recordings? Did Ken take measurements at those locations, yearly, for decades, and did he drill into the ground in those places and get readings going back thousands of years? Ken's been to the Arctic Circle, but does he know precisely how much ice is up there, year after year?

Ken (as others here have done recently), attacks Al Gore, yet continues to be surprised when people defend him in response. Ken is unable to separate out the science from the man, which is likely also why Ken alleged that my article "had no original thoughts", as I'm just reporting on what science tells us. As for the man, I hardly think that writing truthfully about Gore is turning him into some kind of icon; Gore's movie collects a good chunk of the science evidence, and some political evidence like the Exxon Mobile "lets pay for fake science!" memos, into one, easy to digest, movie and book. I wrote about the issue here before his movie came out; I'm just glad that Gore agrees with the science that I've been following for so long ;)

Ken attacks Gore for being rich, something quite hypocritical for a Conservative of his ilk, and for growing tobacco, also somewhat hypocritical, for it's Ken's ilk which most protects that crop and industry, and therefore most likely helped Gore's family to acquire wealth in the first place. Personally, I think that tobacco should be criminalized and pot legalized - but what does that have to do with Gore's stance on global warming? Exactly nothing.

Ken, for an additional $20, we can work on logic.

Gore has a bigger mouth with more teeth and therefore, more cavities, but he keeps those teeth cleaner than most of us keep ours. To a dentist, Gore is a good patient. In other words, although Gore has a bigger house because he's rich, with more cubic feet of air to keep cool or hot, more outlets, more bathrooms with running water and so on, his house is more efficient than most of our houses per foot. As for offsets, I won't repeat that again here (see this article), but suffice it to say, they makes Gore's mouth cleaner than Ken's prized, buffed and polished life sized and anatomically correct Ronald Reagan statue.

Gore, in my opinion, honestly cares for the environment as is evident to me from his long career. That doesn't make him a demigod, it makes him someone who has a history of interest with the cause and wrote a popular book about it.

One final topic about Ken's article that I'd like to mention involves God. Ken uses religion in the worst possible way, and is, at times, very religious agreeing with those who think that God is guiding America, to utterly nonreligious, going on about not having a Christmas tree and not knowing if God is a he or she or it. Ken has faith when it suits him, though faith in what we don't know; it seems to be a faith very concerned with protecting the Jesus story (although we've heard at times that Ken isn't Christian). Ken comes off as a Limbaugh like gas-bag in that regard, purposely agreeing with points he doesn't think about or consider, often contradicting himself and being unprincipled about the specifics in order to attempt to win the greater appeals, political battles, and war. If being religious helps the current hot issue, Ken can weep over the cross with the best of them.

Ken isn't a good skeptic (I am glad that he has admitted as much in black and white, I'll be eager to refer back to this in the future), nor a good realist.

Ken, in order to be a good realist you must memorize and repeat the following and then you must send me $40 for my trouble and for your dual-certificate:

I, Ken Hughes, being of sound body and mind (despite my inability to right-click the mouse on those brightly colored squiggly lines which appear under most of the sentences in most of my articles in my word processor), do now swear that there are many realistic and practical considerations related to global warming, such as the rise in sea levels which could cost us billions as we have to relocate some of our major cities or dam them all to hell, and the breakout of many regional wars over such things as water shortages. I understand that in the real world, this could easily conflate our problems with radical Islam, especially in an up and coming battle ground for this kind of thing, Africa, and cause us real problems. While I could frankly care less for the damage to the non-human environment having, along with my fellow elephants, abandoned the environmental roots of the Republican party (species extinction and so forth), I do most certainly take issues of national defense warnings from the Pentagon, and our future economy, seriously.

I understand that a marketing firm, the same firm that invented the term, "death tax", was specifically hired to come up with "climate change" as a less-severe sounding alternative to "global warming" and understand that, in reality, marketing matters in terms of selling ideas or product, not in terms of fact, scientific or otherwise.

Ken also claimed himself a "serious observer". If that is you goal, it will cost you $60, Ken. Don't forget, $80 if you want the certificate to reflect an understanding of basic logic as well. I'll email you the relevant oaths once I've written them. I'll take $5 off if you click that link, Ken, and watch in stunned amazement like I did as Republican Senators change their wording, sometimes in mid-sentence, to "climate change" shortly after having received the proper memo.