1. You should see the movie Inconvenient Truth. That is a real eye opener.

4:16PM on Jan 23rd 2007 by Rob

2. ...and then read "Mein Kampf" for another eye-opener. Please. Al Gore's movie stretches the truth and ignores criticisms of his theory.

Alex, your assertion at the end of your post from a conservative point of view is actually more of a protectionist's point of view. A true conservative would argue for no government intervention in private industry.

Also, while this study is already gushed over as a "smoking gun," we find out about some interesting financial connections to some proponents that global warming is caused by man (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200701/NAT20070123a.html).

What would qualify as evidence for me to believe that global warming is man's fault? Conclusive evidence. What evidence makes you (a general "you") believe that man is behind this? Again, temperature data only goes back approximately a hundred years. As a scientist, would you ever make a conclusion based on such a small sample time frame in the billions of years of Earth's existance? What about the fact that the Sun is hotter these days than in the past? What about the theories (generated from soil samples and those types of fun things) that the Earth's climate was about the same temperature centuries ago as it is today? Were there serfs driving around in SUVs?

How do you know global warming isn't naturally occuring?

5:22PM on Jan 23rd 2007 by Mätt

3. Here's the thing -- we aren't talking about an increase in governmental intervention to take any course of action or oversight. It creates no further bureaucracy to, say, raise the MPG requirements on automobiles, and/or promote energy star appliances.

The point I'm trying to make is that even without conclusive evidence, the pro's for tweaking our actions (and they're relatively minor tweaks, I might add) far outweigh the con's. From the current conservative (as in, the U.S. political camp made up of just about all republicans and a few dems, not the classic ideology) view point, it's a solid game plan.

Global warming and climate fluctuation is absolutely part of a natural cycle -- that's not in debate. The debate centers on the giant cloud of pollution we've helped create around the earths atmosphere. The presence of that pollution isn't in debate.

To simplify things, I'll give a horrible example ;). When it's cloudy outside -- the heat gets trapped in through the course of the night, no? Global warming is a fairly straight forward argument that has 100,000+ years of data pointing to co2 and temperature being correlated. That correlation isn't even in debate.

The debate is whether or not that correlation means causation. You're right, 100,000 years is a relatively small sample size. That's why it's theory.

The catch is that the costs of being wrong are high, and even if we take action and it proves to not be true, we still win through economic growth provided by increase and a modernization of infrastructure. Not to mention a lesser dependence on foreign energy sources. No increase in government size - hell, I bet we could reduce government size at the same time simply by enforcing whats already in place, the creation of a ton of jobs relating to infrastructure, and the feel-good notion that we've made the air cleaner.

It's not laissez faire, but it's a no lose issue.

5:54PM on Jan 23rd 2007 by Alex Rudloff

4. You're anti-tree! You want to deny beautiful, glorious, innocent trees their precious CO2 that keeps them alive. In fact, you want to commit tree genocide by reducing the amount of CO2! How dare you. ;)

I get what you're saying, and in a government-mandate-free scenario, I'm with you. I do my own part and would encourage others to do the same because even if global warming isn't something we can do anything about, less pollution makes the world prettier. However, while you and I may not be talking about increased governmental beauracracy or regulation, I fear that everyone else is. I'd like to REDUCE government and not just maintain the status quo anyway.

9:22PM on Jan 23rd 2007 by Mätt

5. It's not much to do with the administration in my mind, just the overall political climate in this country. There's this your-a-anti-business-hippie if you buy into environmental efforts thing going on, and its simply not the case -- or at least, shouldn't be.

Kyoto isn't without its faults, but even before we get to kyoto, there are things we could do/enforce on a consumer level (automobile fuel efficiencies) that would make a drastic difference in terms of foreign dependence on oil, air quality, etc.

If things keep pace, I'm willing to bet that these things become a main stage issue by 2010.

5:15PM on Feb 6th 2007 by Alex Rudloff

6. I receive all the bulletins from the EPA and therefore I am aware of the efforts being taken every day to clean up and eliminate pollution. Of course the environmental extremists will shout how the EPA cn't be trusted to tell the truth.

But you know what, you have to believe someone who is willing to put the facts in writing. So I take the EPA press releases seriously. By the way, there have some interesting statements in these realeases that never seem to make the news anywhere.

So I believe the UUSA is making progress. As with anything else this important, it is an ongoing effort that will continue until the end of civilization.

The larger problem is that the developing nations are so far behind the curve that it is troubling.

Consider the following illustrations:
De-forestation in places such as Haiti (small example but you get the point).
Coal burning using old technology.
Chemical refining without oversight
Transportation with little or no concern for emission controls.

There are many more examples but the point is that if the USA had agreed to Kyoto (opposed by Clinton) then the USA would be forced to adhere to a set of rules that don't apply to developing nations.

This country has mobilized around many causes and put together solutions that acheive goals.

If less wind was spent criticizing the administration and focused on developing solutions, we would be futher ahead. Despite the roadblocks, the USA and other countries are making progress.

1:22PM on Feb 7th 2007 by Mystic Don