Chasing another will-o'-the-wisp

Excerpt from this article:

There were some questions following the talk, and Lindzen was asked if it wouldn't be better to sign Kyoto and follow-on agreements just to be on the safe side. Lindzen said no. Combating a hypothetical problem would waste resources, human more than material, which could be much better devoted to other ends, such as improving public health.

But the further problem with making global warming the object of a huge and highly political international project may be that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; that when the theory is inevitably discredited and dismissed, possibly after a few bad snowstorms, the whole package of environmentalism will be discredited too, along with all the worthy parts involving the reduction of harmful pollutants and preservation of wildlife habitat.

We'll have squandered much by chasing a will-o'-the-wisp -- a term in folklore for a floating ball of light. Most people believe a will-o'-the-wisp is -- fittingly, in this case -- a phenomenon related to methane, a greenhouse gas.