Quote Originally Posted by wilomn View Post
No mention was made about any compensation or access to funds for personal research by any of those who once thought one thing, espoused it as truth, and have now changed their minds.

I'd like to know where the Earth has cooled. We are having hotter days more often than ever before. We'll be breaking records later this week as a matter of fact. Our rainfall is off severely.

How can the antarctic ice be growing when burgs the size of small cities are falling off daily? Has anyone looked at Iceland lately? The glaciers there have retreated, MELTED, for MILES AND MILES from where they were just a few years ago.

Who CARES if it's totally man made? The fact is, the Earth IS warming, the oceans are rising and whether you blame your neighbor or not changes NOTHING.

Also, that guy has been out of NASA for the last FIFTEEN years. I'm sure he is keeping right up with the forefront of research by all the reading he's been doing.

Let's hear from someone who's shoes have graced the halls of NASA in the last, oh.... let's say coupla years not decade and a half.

Politics aside, the world is changing. I don't see how 6 billion eating, breathing, pooping, farming, polluting occupants could effect something as big as the entire planet. Can you?
It DOES matter. Sure, I'll take the argument that the earth IS warming. Not that I believe it... YET, we haven't had enough data gathering to prove one way or the other. Remember the global-cooling crowd of the 80's? But, the Ice Age came and melted and there's nothing to say that it won't happen again.
But, what REALLY MATTERS is when people try to force PUBLIC policy on a populus based on the unproven theory that what they are doing is causing global warming. I don't remember there being SUVs during the Ice Age meltdown. When the government passes a bill that you have to replace your roof within the next 5 years without provisions for how the job is going to be paid for (as happened in a city in Germany) to prevent global warming, that's when I say... HEY, wait a minute!
Or when nations come together in Kyoto and come up with a protocol that highly industrialized countries have to pass Kyoto standards of clean air to prevent global warming but others are exempt and American citizens start shouting on their rooftops about how America is a bad, bad country for not agreeing with it. That's when I say, okay guys, take your emotions aside and think about this for a minute. On one hand, Americans are complaining left and right about how they are losing their jobs, they can't afford this or that, gas is too expensive, the economy sucks (they've been saying this for years, not just last year). And then on the other hand, they want other nations to dictate their environmental policies.
Okay, I know some of you are not getting this, so let's put it at a simplistic hypothetical scenario. Say, Pencil-making company of Small-Town Alabama spends 10 cents to make one pencil. It used to cost only one penny but with the Federal government imposing EPA standards, now it costs him 10 cents. He sells the pencil to Walmart for 25 cents. Now, because of having to meet Kyoto protocol (mostly administrative paperwork and red-tape because EPA covers most of it already), it will now cost him 25 cents to make one pencil. So, to keep profit margins, he will have to sell the pencil to Walmart for 38 cents. So then here's Shanghai Pencil-Making Company in China and Bombay Pencil-Making Company in India. They are exempt from most of the Kyoto regulations because they are developing industries. So, they can keep on polluting the environment (no such thing as EPA in China or India), popping out pencils for a penny apiece, turns around and sells it to Walmart for whopping 25 cents making a killer profit margin. Of course Walmart is going to buy it from Shanghai Company or Bombay Company. Small-Town Alabama just got kicked out of the competition. So what does Small-Town Alabama Pencil-making company do? MOVE TO INDIA! DUH! And to top it all off, the air is still polluted.
So, yes, IT DOES MATTER.
What we need is to compete in the global market and WIN. Because with our EPA standards, we are BETTER than anybody else out there. If we can knock China or India out of the competition, then their production becomes limited and the air-polluting plants will be minimized.
We can keep the air clean, limit carbon emissions, recycle, be responsible earth-dwellers without needing the government to mandate it and tax it and whatever else they want to do with it that does nothing else but kill the American industry.
And know that you can do all this and the earth could still warm up. But then, so what? Then tourism in Maine will be high year-round with their white sandy warm beaches. Or maybe we can finally grow rice in Antarctica. My point is, all of us - plants and animals together - will adapt or will die. Just like the Siberian Tigers and the Wooly Mammoth and the dinosaurs who crapped much larger crap than our seemingly overpopulated humans and I'm sure emitted a tanker full of carbon dioxide every single time they farted.
But then, hey, this is all just my own ramblings from my own vat of inexpert opinions.