The presence of the Religious Left somehow makes Green dishonesty on global warming even more disturbing. In an interview with The Detroit News editorial board, National Council of the Churches General Secretary and Rev. Bob Edgar voiced his agreement with the NRDC’s David Tuft that global warming can be “solved” if “the United States cuts its global warming pollution by 80 percent by 2050.”

No credible expert believes this is true because — even assuming the reductions — developing countries will be increasing CO2 emissions at rates many times the U.S. Al Gore climatologist Tom Wigley has famously said that a 25 percent global reduction such as that prescribed by Kyoto would curb temperatures by a miniscule .07 percent. Climatologist Chip Knappenberger says a U.S. reduction “will hardly achieve anything.” And even an 80 percent global reduction, he estimates, would effect a mere .18 degrees per decade — just seven-tenths of one degree of warming by the mid-21st century.

Yet Tuft and Edgar insist that “existing technologies” and “changing our lifestyles to use low-energy light bulbs and hybrid vehicles” will eliminate the 3.5-8 degree F warming predicted by 2050.

This is how the “moral challenge” of global warming is being sold: One lie at a time.