Originally Posted by djplong

Follow The Money, indeed. Sad that it comes to that so frequently.

"Global Warming" has already been falling out of disfavor to be replaced with the term "Climate Change".

The interesting part here is how to reconcile real data, faked data, hoax information and clearly observable conditions.

What nobody on the planet can argue with, because of everything from satellite pictures to shipping schedules, is that polar ice is going away. Glaciers are melting, more icebergs are calving, the Ross ice shelf is deteriorating. Those are facts. The question then becomes "why". Well, warmer temps are the first suspect. Then the next question is "why" and that's where the REAL arguments start.

My position? I have a hard time believing some of the alarmists because I worked in Boston when seas were supposed to be rising. Not only did I work in Boston, I worked ON A PIER - literally on the water - old-timers would know the place as Commonwealth Pier Exhibition Hall, the modern name is the World Trade Center in Boston. Some areas steps down into the ports and I didn't notice any steps "going away". (I did notice one unbelievable jellyfish bloom - whole harbor looked like a bowl of Rice Krispies for 2 days).

I don't believe all the apocalyptic rantings that have come out. I mean, I don't see a lot of news covering the huge algae/plankton bloom that happened around Antarctica (wish I remembered the details) that nobody expected and is now going to be digesting more CO2 in that area than had been previously estimated. To me, this is part of nature reacting. Lots of growth of organisms that eat stuff that now happens to be in abundance (CO2). Duh!

That being said, I don't think we should be dumping everything into the atmosphere that we're doing. I believe we have the technology to get off of fossil fuels and make things a LOT better for everyone. I think there's a lot of money to be made "doing the right thing". I mean, I don't know if we can make plastics out of something else, but we don't HAVE to burn oil in order to commute to work.

Now, I love to drive. But the commute can get monotonous, boring and aggravating as traffic gets worse. I would like it if there were options - but in this area, there aren't.

I also want to put my money where my mouth is. I'd like to be able to make my next car a Volt (plug-in hybrid) but I also know that converting to more electrically-based cars will cause a disruption down the road. How will we pay for our roads as people use less and less gas (and paying less gas taxes)? I find it frustrating that it took until the 21st century for car companie to discover what the railroads discovered in the 1930s and 40s - that the most efficient form of locomotion is an engine producing power for electricity to drive the wheels. An engine can be tuned for optimum efficiency if it doesn't have to worry about driving the wheels. Let the electric motors worry about that.

It ticks me off that people say nukes aren't a solution because we "have no plan to deal with the waste". Well, we do. It's called Yucca Mountain. And you're also assuming that we don't act like France and reprocess spent rods or that technology won't come up with a solution in the next 50-100 years (remember, 100 years ago, we didn't have nuke plants at all - technology doesn't stand still).

And stop treating "Europe" like it's a dirty word. There ARE things we can learn from them. we can study their health plans (especially the ones that include private insurance) and make them better. Look at the French when it comes to getting around by train or getting electricity. Look at the Brits and how cars aren't the ONLY option for travelling a lot of places. It doesn't mean we HAVE to mimick their employment model (making it nearly impossible for a company to fire workers in France)

I mean, come on, they built a tunnel between France and England over a DECADE ago and we can't bypass traffic in New York with a tunnel between Long Island and Connecticut because of NIMBYs?????

The solutions ARE THERE. We just need the political will to DO IT.