God is a polluter.

"I cannot imagine any objective finding that CO2 is a pollutant," he said. "If that's true, God is a polluter."

-- Rep. Joe Barton, from Texas (naturally)

Al Gore was in Washington yesterday testifying before committees in the very building he once presided over as President of the Senate.

Yesterday morning on NPR I heard Gore being criticized because he said in a speech that a polar ice flow would be completely gone in 34 years. “How can he make such a specific prediction?” You know what, he probably can’t, but that one prediction, that one dramatic hyperbole, may be serving Gore’s greater goal: getting Americans to wake up to the threat of climate change on our everyday lives. His critics won’t be so bold as to say Al Gore is across the board wrong, except the Republicans in Congress, so they’ll try to discredit him with Love Story / I Created the Internet smears. David Ignatius, in a July 2005 column, recognized these silly debunkers and how they fail:

There's certainly room for scientific debate about Mann's research. A front-page article in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 14 cited a rebuttal by two Canadian scientists, focusing on Mann's alleged mathematical mistakes. But other scientists have noted that there is so much other evidence of global warming that even if Mann did make serious mistakes in his statistical calculations, it wouldn't change the scientific picture very much.

Much of the criticism of Gore and Global Climate Change Science revolves around sticky points and nuanced interpretation. But where are the credible, peer-reviewed studies that refute the idea that the global climate is shifting and carbon emissions are having some impact on it?

But fear not! Rep. Joe Barton is first-class Global Warming denier. Science, public opinion, and common sense be damned. (Really, you don’t think that thick black smoke drifting to the sky will do any harm? You think air was meant to be seen and eaten with a knife and fork?)

"You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong," said Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the leading Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, as he challenged Gore's conclusion that carbon dioxide emissions cause rising global temperatures. Barton and Gore's exchange grew testy at one point—Barton demanding that Gore get to the point and Gore responding that he would like time to answer without being interrupted.

But there is a reason Al Gore was elected president. He’s smart. And despite what our media wants us to believe, Americans do still respect brains – it’s just after the past 6 years, we’re not used to them.

"The planet has a fever," Gore said. "If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, `Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

We also like wit. It’s not just for the British anymore.

I think Al Gore has been the best champion for any single issue in a generation. I’ve seen enthusiasm for a cause ebb and flow, from the red ribbons at the Oscars, to Free Tibet concerts, to Bono’s hopeless pleading for Third World debt relief. In the decade and a half of my political awareness, little real progress in moving “America” seems to have been made. AIDS infection is at an all time high despite efforts of the Left to stem the tide being resisted by the Abstinence-only folks who’d rather their children be exposed to a fatal disease than be exposed to scientific information on sex. Tibet is no more free today than it was when I was college sophomore trying to dodge unshowered causists shoving brochures and bumper stickers in my hands on my way to class. And the Third World governments are still crippled from solving their own problems of poverty and disease because countries like the United States, China and much of Europe are still coming around with their tin cups in one hand and baseball bats in the other.

Al Gore has achieved something few can: engaging the American public on something other than the paternity of Daniellyn Smith. (Please let it be Larry. If there is a God in heaven, let it be Larry!)