About that Reuters item that found a chilly silver lining to the economic downturn on the grounds that everyone knows CO2 drives warming — at least in theaters and computer models — and so less energy use means less global warming.

Forget that ever-increasing CO2 has been followed by cooling of late. The right kind of people know this strange sort of optimism is nonsense, as seen in the rather nutty, ad hom press release from the then-newly installed “chief climate scientist” of the IPCC, the economist Rajendra Pachauri, taking out after Castles and Henderson for daring ask question the all-knowing body:

“There is absolutely no reason to believe that, in the longer term, lower economic development would, all other things being equal, result in lower emissions.”

Er . . . right.