So Andrew Sullivan says global warming is like the WMD “debate” before the Iraq War:

It occurs to me that the global warming debate is not unlike the WMD-terrorist debate, except the sides are reversed ….

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In both cases, however, the evidence is complicated and hard to pin down with absolute certainty. We know we are at much greater risk now from Islamist terror than we were a decade ago – but measuring how much, and where from specifically, is very hard. Equally, we know that global warming is real, but whether it has reached or will soon reach a dangerous tipping point is not a given.

Riiight. I can think of a number of ways that Iraq and climate change are similar, but that isn’t one of them. Let’s count the ways:

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  1. Before the war began, the professional weapons-hunters said that Iraq was disarmed, and that Bush was doing the wrong thing. Similarly, the scientific community is unanimous that climate change is happening, and Bush is doing the wrong thing.
  2. Left unchecked, Bush’s policies in Iraq have led to disaster. Left unchecked, Bush’s policies on climate change have led to disaster.
  3. To wage the war, Bush assembled a sham “coalition of the willing” to give his actions credibility drag. To ignore climate change, Bush has assembled a sham coalition to give his actions … aw, hell, it isn’t even credible.
  4. The case for Bush’s policies in Iraq relied heavily on a well-planned campaign of deception and misinformation. The case for Bush’s policies on climate change relies on calling carbon dioxide “life.”
  5. Andrew Sullivan was wrong about Iraq. Andrew Sullivan is wrong about climate change. Andrew Sullivan wouldn’t know right if it got drunk and shot him in the face.