The next time some media member says something stupid like "the global warming debate is over," or "the science is settled," consider the firestorm that was set off by a tiny NewsBusters article playfully titled "Clean Air Causes Global Warming, Global Warming Causes Smog."

Although it is now two weeks since this was first published, folks at NewsBusters and RealClimate -- as well as an "esteemed" NASA scientist -- continue to bicker about its contents and meaning.

In fact, as of Thursday evening, NASA's Gavin Schmidt was still battling to make his point:

Updates at end of post: Schmidt responds to (and ignores!) NBers' questions.

Last Saturday, one of the nation's leading climate alarmists -- a government employee with a history of attacking people that don't agree with his views on anthropogenic global warming -- wrote rather disparagingly about a somewhat satirical NewsBusters piece.

Despite claiming he typically doesn’t comment on things “written about climate change in the more excitable parts of [sic] web,” NASA’s Gavin Schmidt took time out of his busy Saturday schedule to respond to something he described as “probably the most boneheaded article that I have seen in ages.”

Was this an effort by one of the founding members of RealClimate – the world’s leading website specializing in climate change hysteria – to correct errors he felt existed in my article? Or, was this a predictable attack on a popular conservative blog that not only regularly exposes the one-sided nature of media reports about global warming, but also frequently brings attention to studies that go counter to RealClimate’s, and maybe more importantly, Schmidt’s views?

After all, to climate alarmists like Schmidt, media shouldn’t be reporting the realist (nee “skeptical”) side of this issue as was made perfectly clear by Nobel Laureate Al Gore during an interview with NBC’s Meredith Vieira during the November 5, 2007, installment of the “Today” show (photo via NPR):