The Competitive Advertising Institute

In what is apparently an attempt to blunt the impact of Al Gore's new film, the geniuses over at the Competitive Enterprise Institute -- a neoliberal "think tank" funded, in part, by $$$$ from ExxonMobil -- have cooked up two 60-second TV spots attacking politicians and "global warming alarmists" who would have you believe that we ought to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. (Somehow, they fail to mention that the world's leading scientists also believe this.)

You really have to watch the ads for yourself to appreciate just how farcical they are. It's hard to believe they're not meant as self-parody -- like something the Onion would have come up with.

The thrust of the spots is captured in the tagline, "Carbon dioxide: They call it a pollutant. We call it Life." Never mind that atmospheric CO2 levels are higher now that at any time in the last 650,000 years: CO2 can't be a bad thing, according to the CEI ads, since "we breathe it out" and "plants breathe it in." In other words, it's natural.

They've basically launched a pro-CO2 campaign.

Now, it's true that carbon dioxide is essential to life on Earth. For one thing, greenhouse gases like CO2 keep our atmosphere warm by absorbing infrared energy radiating off the Earth. The problem is one of balance; in other words, you can have too much of a good thing -- too heavy a jacket on a warm day, for instance. Or take, for example, water. Water is the very stuff of life, but over-water a plant and what happens? It dies.

Of course, you know this. Everybody knows this, because it's common sense -- something the spin doctors at the Competitive Enterprise Institute don't believe you have.