I'm so confused. Uh, what was the question?

It goes in cycles. Dinosaurs swung back and forth too, between the theory that the earth was warming and the earth was cooling, as a result of their activities, before they were smashed into oil by an asteroid. The same thing is happening today.

This is clearly George Bush's fault.

This is not new information. I read about the reflective properties of particulates in the atmosphere years ago, in Science Magazine I believe (where they proposed putting more particulates in the atmosphere). The first time I read about global warming was over twenty years ago.

Snarky sarcasm aside, our government has shown negative leadership on energy policy. Instead of increasing efficiency standards, we go to war and try to drill in national parks to squeeze out the last bit of petroleum.

No, global warming isn't GWB's fault, but he's been undermining efforts to address it. And the rest of the world - particularly the countries that are actually trying to reduce their CO2 emissions - is not too happy about it. Expect to see sanctions against the US for our refusal to participate with the Kyoto accords.

It may be that when global warming hits full stride, when agricultural regions have become barren and cities are below sea level, we'll wonder why we ever concerned ourselves with the threat of terrorism.

Scotch,

1. Bush is leading the charge to find alternative fuels.

2. Nobody is trying to drill for oil in National Parks. That is absurd. What you are referring to is Bush's support for drilling in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. By the way, the few people that actually live in ANWR also support drilling.

3. What is wrong with CO2? C02 is what plants breathe. I thought plants were good. I suppose you want to limit sunlight and nitrogen too.

4. Countries don't introduce sanctions against the U.S. Not only is there no way to enforce them, but they are usually tripping over each other to take advantage of our robust economy and willingness to purchase foreign-made goods.

5. Your prediction of doom and gloom while spectacular, are absurd. Ag regions can be kept fertile through the magic of irrigation, and the only cities that would be below water are "blue" so we (members of the VRWC) don't care about them any way.

1. Bush has given some support to the future hydrogen economy, but if the hydrogen is refined using with fossil fuels then we're no better off. I don't see him aggressively pursuing renewable energy sources like wind, tide and solar - just some general promise of a green future while allowing powerplant owners to pollute more, car makers to exploit the SUV loophole, and waging war to secure access to the petroleum that we should be weaning ourselves off of.

2. Forgive a small exaggeration - although if oil was discovered in a national park, Bush would be leading the charge to drill there. Sure, unemployed loggers will also take jobs to clearcut old growth forests - that doesn't mean it's a good thing.

3. Do some research before you spout off. Here's what's wrong with atmospheric CO2:
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

4. Sanctions may be imposed in more subtle ways - selling off of the dollar, refusing to extend more credit, a boycott of American goods. I read in the paper the other day that Nike, McDonalds and Coca Cola are feeling the economic pinch of anti-Americanism abroad.

5. My predictions of doom and gloom are backed up by that bastion of liberal thought: the Pentagon.

http://www.ems.org/climate/pentagon_climate_change.pdf

Given that federal money generally flows from the Blue states to the Red states, I'd say you need us more than we need you.

1. A wind powered SUV. There's a novel idea. You could be the first on your block to own one. Good luck getting that sail through the Holland Tunnel on your way to Manhattan though.

2. You need to drill where the oil is. Besides, it's not like we're talking Yellowstone here. ANWR is a barren frozen wasteland, and an oil rig would only take up a small part of that. Plus it has been shown that animal life actually thrives around pipelines because of the increased warmth.

Also, harvesting trees is a bit like farming. You cut down what's there and plant some more for the future. As for old growth, it's better to thin it now than have it burn like wildfire and get firemen killed.

3. "Whether the ultimate cause of temperature increase is excess CO2, or a different orbit, or some other factor probably doesn't matter much." So much for your research. Correlation is not causation. Research suggests that it was actually warmer some 500 years ago during the middle ages. There were no SUVs or fossil fuels being used back then. Also, the output of the sun (that ball of fire that provides this planet with most of it's heat) is at the highest point than in the past 1100 or so years. Perhaps that has a little something to do with perceived temperature increases.

4. Nike is not really an American product. The brand is, but I think the shoes are made by 12-year olds in third world countries. McDonalds and Coca-Cola have been fighting anti-Americanism for years. Every time they open a new one in France the farmers drive their tractors down there and firebomb it.

Look at it this way, when it comes to sanctions, who cares. If they don't want to buy our stuff, they don't have to. They are only oppressing their own free market.

5. Maybe you should read your own research: "The scientists support this project, but caution that the scenario depicted is extreme in two fundamental ways. First, they suggest the occurrences we outline would most likely happen in a few regions, rather than on globally. Second, they say the magnitude of the event may be considerably smaller." That's from the executive summary of your famed Pentagon report.

1. Actually, my car is a 50 MPG VW that I run on biodiesel. But your point is well taken (even if you missed mine entirely) - no alternative fuel is going to replace petroleum. That's why we have to improve efficiency, and one step would be to fix the SUV loophole by classifying it as a passenger car. Much more major reforms are in order - but given Chenney's remark that "conservation doesn't work", I don't expect this administration to participate in fighting the most significant battle of the day.

Incidentally, wind farms could be used to produce hydrogen fuel. The $300 billion dollars or so spent on bringing Democracy to the people of Iraq (who snuggle up to it so like many Artic animals) could have been used to build a lot of wind farms.

2. To be honest, I don't care that much about ANWR. Even if we could extract all of that oil without spilling any of it (spare me the image of happy little artic animals snuggling up to the pipeline, please) would only buy us another year or so before we run out of oil. It's a bandaid, when we need a torniquette.

3. The Vostok sample is a smoking gun that conclusively links atmospheric CO2 with temperature increases. Now, the cause and effect is up for debate, but it can't be debated that our use of fossil fuels has dramatically increased the CO2 in the atmosphere.

4. The American economy is a house of cards balanced on an enormous debt. Pissing off the world is a bad economic policy. Not participating in the Kyoto accords is one way we've managed to do that.

5. Sure, the Pentagon Report depicts what they consider to be a worst-case scenario. That doesn't mean it's wrong, nor does it even mean that it IS in fact the worst case scenario. Nevertheless, if even half the castrophe they predict is even halfway accurate, we're looking at a very costly disaster.

Sorry, I see that $300 billion spent on Iraq is an exaggeration. At the moment, anyway. My point still stands.

At to the cause-and-effect question of CO2 and global temperatures, while they are clearly linked (again, the Vostok core samples prove this), it might be true that higher temperatures somehow cause higher CO2 output. But how? Do plants not grow as well in hotter temperatures?

Sure, external factors such as solar activity may be accounting for much of the climate change we're seeing. But there's no doubt that we (and particularly those of us who consume a disproportionate amount of the world's resources) are responsible for some dramatic changes on this planet.

They are showing correlation only, not causation. In other words, they cannot prove that higher CO2 causes higher temperatures. They are merely saying that the temperature is higher and the CO2 is higher so one must cause the other. That is hardly scientific.

It is the height of arrogance to think that humans could change the weather. We cannot even predict the weather more than 2 days out, much less have a global impact.

"But there's no doubt that we (and particularly those of us who consume a disproportionate amount of the world's resources) are responsible for some dramatic changes on this planet."

Why not just come out and say "Blame America".

The correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperature was proven scientifically. The interpretation, as I've said before, is open for debate.

On the one hand, there are computer models showing that an increase in greenhouse gases result in higher temperatures. There's the example of the greenhouse effect on Venus.

On the other hand, higher temperatures can cause the oceans to release more dissolved CO2.

It's possible that higher temperatures and increased levels of CO2 (and other gases) are both the cause and the effect - in which case, we should be really scared. This could run away from us.

The greenhouse effect could not be a factor at all, in which case we're still running out of oil in a few short decades.

It's hard to see on the ground, but biologists are saying that there's a mass extinction going on right now that's comparable to extinction of the dinosaurs. We're taking from the planet faster than it can replenish itself. That goes for Kenyans and it goes for Americans. It goes for Republicans and it goes for Democrats.

"It is the height of arrogance to think that humans could change the weather. We cannot even predict the weather more than 2 days out, much less have a global impact."

The science of Chaos Theory developed from attempts to accurately predict the weather (read "Chaos" by James Gleik if you're interested).

What does Chaos Theory teach? Small changes can have dramatic consequences.

In my opinion, it's the height of arrogance to think that there will be no consequences if we burn biomass that took hundreds of millions of years to form within the span of a few centuries while decimating the rainforests and polluting the oceans.

Nothing to do with SUVs and transportation fuels, but are we seriously never going to build another nuclear reactor? Despite scientific and engineering advances? I don't blame this on the enviromentalists because I don't see much support for nuclear power on the other side either, which amazes me. France, (spit), gets the vast majority of their electricity from nuclear power.
I understand nuclear waste and halflifes and Three Mile Island etc., but is it still so scary that even the enviromentalists would rather burn fossil fuel than nuclear fuel?