CEI makes Weather Channel’s “Top Ten” – greatest impact on climate change discussion

The Weather Channel today announced its “Top Ten” list — those people or organizations that have had the greatest impact on climate change discussions. Not surprisingly, former Vice President Al Gore topped the list (he’s also trying for an Academy Award).

Not surprisingly too is that CEI is the only organization or person on the list that is not part of the “consensus” about global warming policies — that there’s no question about global warming science and it’s better to beggar the world with energy restrictions rather than focus on adaptation and resiliency strategies.

Here’s the list:

The 2006 ONE° Hot List
The Year’s Most Influential in Global Climate Change…
· Al Gore
The other selectees, in alphabetical order…
· Tony Blair
· George W. Bush
· California Politicians
· Richard Cizik and the Evangelicals
· Competitive Enterprise Institute
· Laurie David
· James Hansen
· John McCain and Joseph Lieberman
· Wal-Mart
And here’s what the Weather Channel noted about CEI (Surprisingly, it was straightforward.):

CEI is a non-profit public policy organization that advocates for free enterprise and a limited government. In 2006, the Competitive Enterprise Institute played defense as one of the most influential contrarians to the mainstream scientific view of global climate change.

Since CEI’s position on global warming has been mischaracterized in lots of places, here’s a short summary of what CEI holds:

The world faces severe economic consequences from currently proposed strategies to deal with global warming. These approaches will produce job losses and consume scarce resources that could be better spent on handling other global problems such as AIDS or lack of access to clean drinking water. The economic consequences of global warming mitigation strategies currently proposed will probably be worse than the effects of global warming itself. Therefore, adaptation and resiliency strategies should be considered as a more cost-effective alternative. In addition, “no regrets” strategies that will provide benefits from greater economic growth whether global warming proves to be a problem or not should be adopted at once.