I really shouldn't even take the time to argue this, but...

I thank God I don't live in the United Kingdom. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not because I don't like the people (it is a large part of my family heritage, afterall). I just couldn't stand the thought that I'd be forced to watch BBC News. Even worse I'd have to pay for it with my taxes.

Quite simply, the BBC makes MSNBC and maybe even the Nation even look like paragons of objectivism.

So it shouldn't have surprised me to find the BBC's 'cute' little pictorial before/after sequence seeming to offer proof of the existence of man-made global warming.

In short, the BBC has taken 12 pictures (6 subjects: 3 from the U.S., and one each from Europe, South America, and a Pacific island) and shown a shot of each many years ago versus today. The images show receding glaciers, rising tides, barren mountainsides, and dying forests. The images are by photographer named Gary Braasch.

Now, I'll give Mr. Braasch the benefit of the doubt and assume that he doesn't presuppose to say that his pictures offer proof that man-made global warming is a reality, though the fact that his shtick since 1999 is to 'document climate change,' I do wonder.

Regardless, the BBC certainly heavily implies that his images seem to prove something. It's important to note that they don't ever come out and explicitly say that the pictures prove anything. But placed beside quotations and "facts" from studies and organizations that advocate the existence of man-made global warming, it seems pretty apparent that the intention of the slide show is to provide demonstrable evidence of the veracity of environmentalists' extreme claims.

The utter lunacy of the attempt is incredible, even by BBC standards. The surface area of the earth (that is not underwater) is approximately 57 million square miles. The still shots represent one fraction of a second in a random year of 6 subject points that represent an infinitesimally small fraction of global land area. Thinking that such 'evidence' is even remotely representative of global climate effects is beyond description in its asininity. One might struggle to imagine a greater inductive fallacy.

Even pretending that the images are somehow representative, does it not occur to the BBC that perhaps there are other explanations to the portrayed effects documented in the pictures other than the aggregate effects of human CO2 pollution world-wide causing increased global temperatures?

To take one example they offer: the erosion of 200 meter section of beach in North Carolina. Now, admittedly I have no formal training in geology, oceanography, topography or any related fields, yet I'm pretty certain that beach erosion is a natural occurrence throughout history. The last time I was in Greece, for example, it was continually explained that the coast had shifted dramatically from erosion over thousands of years. So if such effects have been occurring for that long, wouldn't it be difficult to argue with a straight face that evidence of any beach erosion illustrates that extensive human creation of CO2 beginning in the late 1800s is to blame? Apparently not for the BBC. Instead they offer the image as dramatic proof of surging ocean levels.

The BBC also highlights Japanese Beatles destroying a forest in Alaska as a clear sign of climate change. While it may be true that the Beatles would thrive more easily in warmer weather, the 'logic' employed is beyond description in its illegitimacy. Drawn out explicitly, it would look as follows:

A. Japanese Beatles like warm weather.
B. Here is a picture of Japanese beetles.
Ergo: The existence of Japanese beetles in said picture proves the existence of man-made global warming.

It should be apparent that such a line of thinking is totally illogical. Since "global warming" did not create the Japanese beetle and therefore would logically predate any potential man-made warming, it simply cannot be inferred that pictures of the beetles prove anything related to climate change. The beetles are killing forests whether global warming is real or not.

Anyway, I hope my point is made: The BBC's picture show proves precisely nothing, least of all their extreme position of global calamity from man-made CO2 production.

I might not have cared enough to write anything about this, but the BBC decided to include an image of Mt. Hood just outside of Portland. Given that I look at the mountain every day, and know that their 'representative' image doesn't note that 2002 was an unusual year, and that glaciers are present year round any other time, including all years after 2002, I had to weigh in.

Well, at least some of the BBC's pictures were pretty...