"Who is impious enough to believe that Earth's contours are permanent? Our eyes are simply too slow to see the shift of tectonic plates that has raised the Himalayas and is dangling Los Angeles over an unstable fault."

Huh? Now we're talking about geology and tectonic plates? Camille, the subject was global warming! Not continental drift! Wake up, lady!

"I began "Sexual Personae" (parodying the New Testament): "In the beginning was nature." And nature will survive us all. Man is too weak to permanently affect nature, which includes infinitely more than this tiny globe."

Ummmm.....Camille? Can we get back to why you're skeptical about claims of global warming? Saying "cataclysmic change is inevitable" is pretty different from saying "I am skeptical that cataclysmic change will occur."

"I voted for Ralph Nader for president in the 2000 election because I feel that the United States needs a strong Green Party."

Great. That turned out so well, didn't it?

"However, when I tried to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on cable TV recently, I wasn't able to get past the first 10 minutes."

So Camille, are you then admitting that you didn't even watch the scientific presentation? Or did you watch the whole thing at some previous time? Are you skeptical of global warming because the movie was too boring to sit through?

"I was snorting with disgust at its manipulations and distortions and laughing at Gore's lugubrious sentimentality, which was painfully revelatory of his indecisive, self-thwarting character."

Did we see the same movie? The only "manipulations" I saw were some soft piano music accompanying Gore's reflective narration about his feelings on the environment. What were the distortions? What is wrong with Gore saying something sentimental about his childhood experiences near a lake? And what does any of this have to do with your global-warming skepticism?

"When Gore told a congressional hearing last month that there is a universal consensus among scientists about global warming -- which is blatantly untrue -- he forfeited his own credibility."

That's funny, I could have sworn that at least two major groups of climate scientists (numbering in the hundreds) issued statements to the effect that they all agreed that human-caused global warming was a real phenomenon that is as serious as Al Gore makes it out to be. Do you remember those, Camille? Have you read the statistics? Are you denying that somewhere in the realm of 99% of scientists in fields related to global warming agree it is a real, human-caused phenomenon? How did Gore forfeit his credibility here?

"Environmentalism is a noble cause."

Thanks for that, Camille. We needed you to tell us that.

"It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths."

Okay, so how about you provide a single example of somebody slinging blatant propaganda or half-truths? You haven't so far.

"Every industrialized society needs heightened consciousness about its past, present and future effects on the biosphere."

Wouldn't such heightened consciousness include becoming more educated about human effects on the environment? (By, for example, sitting through all of "An Inconvenient Truth" instead of only the first 10 minutes?)

"Though I am a libertarian, I am a strong supporter of vigilant scrutiny and regulation of industry by local, state and federal agencies."

Bravo, Camille! Where do we send you your award?

"But there must be a balance with the equally vital need for economic development, especially in the Third World."

All righty then. So how do we balance that? By not having adhering to international environmental agreements whatsoever -- which seems to be the Bush administration's current policy?

"A bankrupt thermometer factory in Franklin Township, N.J., vacated its building in 1994 but ignored a directive to clean the premises of residual mercury toxins..."

What. The. Hell. Are. You. Talking. About??? Does this have anything to do with global warming skepticism? Or are you simply padding your response with irrelevant anecdotes to mask the utter insubstantiality of your position?

Seriously.....this is almong the most irresponsible things I've ever read from a supposedly progressive individual.