In st. John's, Newfoundland when you call the number listed in the phone book for the Mayors' Office, Mayor Andy Wells, the mayor , answers the phone. It's not his assistant or an automated operator, it's the mayor himself. Never a stranger to controversy he has now made a statement, which I consider to be one his least controversia, which is apparently causing some controversy:

Andy Wells, the outspoken Mayor of St. John's, pictured, has outraged Canadian environmentalists and physicians with his comments that David Suzuki and Al Gore are "junk scientists," and that herbicides in small amounts are safe. From St. John's to Ottawa, Calgary and Burnaby, B.C., communities across the country continue to debate cosmetic pesticide and herbicide use and whether it should be allowed. But while passions often come to the fore in the arguments over whether the chemical treatments for lawn care are safe, it's unlikely that many have stated the case as bluntly as does Mr. Wells. "I think there's a lot of junk science out there that's masquerading as true science,'' the Mayor said yesterday.

Yeah, it is junk science based on nothing. There is not a serious study to show any harmful effects but the fear mongerers continue to spread fear and line their pockets with suckers' money.

The sky is falling faster than ever! Run! Run for your lives!

So, once again, Al Gore presents a picture of the future that may come true, albeit in a few billion years. So what is his reasoning behind making such outrageous claims? Just to scare people. That's the problem with AGW alarmism, people become habituated (numbed) to the tales of catastrophe, so the prophets of doom, like Mr. Gore, David Suzuki, Laurie David and others, have to present ever bigger and ever scarier stories to keep the masses interested and frightened.

Another crank, this one with the dubious distinction of being the United States lead hurricane forecaster, says that computer modeling is a flawed way to view climate change...apparently, it's the ocean that is affecting the climate, not mankind:

THE United States' leading hurricane forecaster says global ocean currents, not human-produced carbon dioxide, are responsible for global warming.

William Gray, a Colorado State University researcher, also said the Earth may begin to cool on its own in five to 10 years.

.....

Earlier this month, he dubbed former US vice-president and 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore "a gross alarmist" for making the Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which helped focus media attention on global warming.

Yesterday, Dr Gray said that politics and research into global warming had created "almost an industry" that had frightened the public and overwhelmed dissenting voices.

He said research arguing that humans were causing global warming was "mush" based on unreliable computer models that could not possibly take into account the hundreds of factors that influenced the weather.

He said little-understood ocean currents were behind a decades-long warming cycle, and disputed assertions that greenhouse gases could raise global temperatures as much as some scientists predicted.

What does he know? All the real scientists are unanimous in the belief that research money will flow more readily from man-made climate change.