You know you’ve published a dubious article when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) cites you in a global warming hearing. Today’s Post piece on the impact of global warming on Greenland exemplifies missing the forest for the trees.

The piece shows that warming would have winners and losers in Greenland, as you would expect. In classic Inhofe fashion, of course, the Senator claimed the piece said, “they are rejoicing up in Greenland” over global warming. He probably didn’t read past the misleading headline: “Icy Island Warms to Climate Change.”

The article was actually more balanced, in a narrow sense. It notes that “The Arctic is feeling the globe’s fastest warming,” some 11°F from 1991 to 2003. It has stories of Greenlanders who thought they would benefit and those who thought they would lose from the fast thaw. But the article goes far astray here:

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Wind supporters line up – LA Times. BP says, “It is the most cost-effective low-carbon solution we have today.”

L.A. Officials Call for Water Conservation Amid Drought – Bloomberg. “Rising population, climate change and stream flow conditions ‘have cast great uncertainty’ on the reliability of future Colorado River supplies to southern California and the southwestern U.S.”

Toyota Worldwide Hybrid Sales Top 1 Million – A.P. Factoid: Last year, the Prius “made up more than 40 percent of hybrid sales in the U.S.”

Abuse and incompetence in fight against global warming – The Guardian (UK). Why the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is not what it’s cracked up to be.

You can get the audio here.

You know that a global warming hearing is not going well when the Senate’s lead Denyer, James Inhofe (R-OK), calls it “the best hearing we’ve had.” The four witnesses for the majority made strong presentations, as we’ve noted, but the three Denyer witnesses were too skilled at spreading disinformation.

Note to Majority: Only one more witness than the minority? Not exactly the kind of balance you got when positions were reversed and Inhofe was Chair.

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For the Catholic community, the environmental concern behind global warming began at Genesis, not Earth Day.

At least that is how John Carr, Secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, framed his testimony to the EPW Committee this morning. He, along with various religious leaders, stressed the moral responsibility to the poor, but the leaders’ reasoning could not have been more different.

On one end were the Catholic, Jewish and Christian Evangelical communities worried about the impact of uncontrolled global warming on the poor. On the other end were the Southern Baptist and historical Evangelican representatives who, along with the witness from the Institute on Religion and Democracy, expressed concern that global warming legislation would do more harm on the poor.

It was a sad game of tug-of-war over the interests of the poor, a disparity in which Inhofe merrily basked once Boxer left her Chair for another engagement.

The highlight of the hearing was listening to Rabbi David Saperstein describe the campaign, “How Many Jews Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?” The campaign tagged itself to Chanukah, a.k.a. the Festival of Lgihts, and educated people on the importance of replacing their incandescent bulbs with energy efficient, compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Saving people money on their utility bills – that really is in the interest of affordable and environmentally-sound living.

The missing voice at both the G-8 and the Senate hearing on religion and climate. Sadly, his impassioned plea for action by President Bush at the G-8 meeting has fallen on deaf ears.

OK, it’s a man-bites-dog story at this point, but the outcome has a few small bright spots of light — let’s call them nano-spots:

G-8 leaders agreed on a plan calling for “substantial cuts” to greenhouse gas emissions.

The leaders failed to overcome U.S. resistance to committing to specific numerical targets to curb global warming, but did refer to the European Union goal of cutting emissions by 50 percent by 2050.

In the end, Bush’s “aspirational” plan carried the day:

Instead of fixed cuts, Bush last week proposed having the 15 top emitters meet and set a long-term goal whereby each nation decides itself how much to do toward it.

Full Senate Environment Committee hearing entitled, “An Examination of the Views of Religious Organizations Regarding Global Warming.” Webcast available here starting at 10. Witness list here.

11:45 am UPDATE: Not as interesting a hearing as I thought it would be. The Denyers were out in force both among Senators, lead by Inhofe (R-OK), and even among witnesses. They should have brought in a religious leader from a developing country to make the case that the poorest, those who have contributed the least to warming, will suffer the most.

It’s not news when Climate Progress criticizes Congress’s proposals to subsidize coal-to-liquids (CTL). After all, my focus is avoiding serious global warming, which CTL would only make more likely.

But when two newspapers from traditional coal regions say “no” to CTL, that is a man-bites-dog story.

The Kentucky Herald-Leader has a great headline:

Liquid coal a new version of snake oil: Don’t subsidize energy plans that would worsen global warming.

The Roanoke Times of the coal-region of Southwestern Virginia has an equally strong headline:

Billion-dollar boondoggle: Coal-to-liquid technology is expensive, harmful to the environment and inefficient. The federal government should take no part in subsidizing it.

Wisdom in the media on these issues is rare. Kudos to both papers for putting the long-term national interest above short-term local interests.