Conventional Wisdom

The cover story of the latest Newsweek looks at the well-funded campaign to deny global warming and cast doubt on the consensus view. If you've read Ross Gelbspan's Boiling Point or, for that matter, kept up on your Sierra subscription, there's nothing much new here. Still, it's good to see the topic covered at length in a mainstream magazine. And, as the article points out,

If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. Yes, 19 million people watched the "Live Earth" concerts last month, titans of corporate America are calling for laws mandating greenhouse cuts, "green" magazines fill newsstands, and the film based on Al Gore's best-selling book, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. But outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.

Also in the magazine: Alaskans ponder a future without the Pork King: Senator Ted Stevens in trouble.