Think Progress has a nice follow-up to my earlier post about the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a oil-industry funded group which is trying to convince Americans, through advertising, that there is no global warming.

One CEI ad argues that carbon dioxide (one of the root causes of global waming) is good and necessary.  Specifically, the ad says carbon dioxide is “essential to life” because “we breath it out.”

That’s the sort of facile argument that will persuade 5 year olds, but not serious adults.  As Think Progress notes:

It’s comforting to know that this is the best global warming rejectionists can come up with. There are plenty of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities but harmful in extremely large quantities. (For example, drinking a few glasses of water is beneficial. Drinking 10 gallons of water can kill you.) We need some carbon dioxide, but too much causes global warming.

The other CEI advertisement simply misuses a particular scientific study.  The ad says that the study found that glaciers on Greenland are growing.  This is technically true, but misleading.  What the ad doesn’t say is that the glaciers are growing on Greenland’s interior, due to localized weather patterns and elevation (sort of a cold El Nino of the North).  Greenland’s coast, however, is still diminishing, due to global warming.

But what would you expect from an oil company funded institution?  Honesty and fair play?