The Global Warming Denyers are truly confused in the arguments and “facts” that they make up.

Planet Gore has dug up “a leading international geologist and former expert IPCC reviewer,” Tom V. Segalstad, who is quoted as saying:

The IPCC postulates an atmospheric doubling of CO2, meaning that the oceans would need to receive 50 times more CO2 to obtain chemical equilibrium. This total of 51 times the present amount of carbon in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the known reserves of fossil carbon — it represents more carbon than exists in all the coal, gas, and oil that we can exploit anywhere in the world.

Ooh. Looks like all the leading climate scientists in the world made a simple, stupid mistake. Gosh, guess we can all go out and build all the coal plants we want — not!

The key to this nonsense is the worlds I have boldfaced. To paraphrase Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, “Tom, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in chemical equilibrium any more.”

That’s the whole point — we are spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than the oceans and other sinks can take them up. It takes thousands of years to reach equilibrium with the oceans — the planet will be cooked (and the near-surface ocean nearly lifeless) long before then. I’ll provide one of the many sources you can find on the Internet for this genuine fact below; as we’ll see, the real story — the ocean sink appears to be saturating — should actually make us more worried about global warming, not less.

Let’s call this PG Disinfotainment Watch #41 and #42 (for not bothering to use Google to find the truth). And let’s strip Tom (pictured here) of his doctorate for making a mistake that would get an undergraduate geology student a failing grade.
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Plug-ins are on the way! We’ve said it many times, but then we aren’t the world’s leading auto maker. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Toyota’s revelation Tuesday that it will develop a new “plug-in hybrid” – which uses a wall socket at night to charge and relies on an electric motor to go many miles before sipping any gasoline – could presage a major shift in automotive technology, some industry analysts say.

Detroit’s Big Three have each said the technology is being looked at – after years of outright dismissal. But Toyota’s announcement was more significant because the company is presumed to have the technology to actually bring such cars to market, they say….

On Tuesday, the president of Toyota’s North American subsidiary, Jim Press, said the company is looking at developing a plug-in vehicle that can “travel greater distances without using its gas engine.” The technology would “conserve more oil and slice smog and greenhouse gases to nearly imperceptible levels”

The later claim assumes, of course, the electricity is greenhouse-gas free, which it will have to be if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming (though even running on current grid electricity, a plug in is much cleaner than a regular car).

Looks like we may have a race for the first practical, consumer plug-in between Toyota and G.M.