Ignorance
I submitted a comment at Chris Mooney's great blog, The Intersection. It pretty well sums up my occasional frustration having to depend on experts.

Chris, do you have any thoughts (or have you seen any good ones..) about the recent Duke study that questions the seriousness of global warming impact?..or at least that's how the Washington Times presented it today.

One difficult thing about being a (complete) non-scientist is not really having the tools to critically read scientific reports. The rest of us have to wait for the peer review process to play its way out..and with something like climate change/human existence i'm not sure how smart waiting is! So, I turn to thinkers I trust...like you in this case...and ask the question: should this study make me less afraid of the effects of global warming...and if so, how much? and if not, why not? What do you think?

I can't really believe that we're suddenly supposed to breathe easy over global warming. But, since I likely wouldn't know how to read the report even if I tried, I don't know all the good reasons to not pay attention to it, or at least to the Washington Times' version of it. My first reaction is to find little comfort in a conclusion that says that the imminent destruction of most lifeforms on Earth as we know it is not as likely as we thought. I mean, just falling a little shy of that dire prediction is still pretty bad, right? But I'd like to know what a real scientist, or a smarter person than I, thinks.

One thing I am sure about...isn't it just like the Washington Times to try and throw cold water on global warming just ahead of Earth Day?