If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention...

On Friday, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report concluding "with 90 percent certainty" that humans are the cause of global warming, and that the Earth's temperatures are likely to rise by 3-7 degrees before the year 2100.

This report is the culmination of what reputable scientists have believed for years -- that humans have irrevocably altered the planet through the use of fossil fuels, and that we better start doing something about it, as rising temperatures could mean higher sea levels, causing major problems for coastal cities around the world.

Predictably, the oil company-owned Bush Administration gave lip service to the report, while denouncing efforts to enact governmental standards to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere. As if we can trust corporations to just be good citizens on their own without governmental controls, right?

And yet, it gets worse. The American Enterprise Institute, which is a "think tank" funded by ExxonMobil and employing many former members of the Bush Administration, has offered $10,000 to scientists and economists as a payoff if they will publicly criticize the IPCC report.

Because that's how you ensure reputable science, right? Pay the researchers to get the results you want. Sure. It's called the "$cientific method," I think.

It seems that the oil companies learned by watching what Big Tobacco did for years and years. If science doesn't support your position, doesn't support you continuing to stuff your pockets with cash, just lie, lie, lie. And if you can pay some other people to lie for you, even better.

This is what you get, America, for electing an oil company whore to the White House.