One thing Cheesey and I will agree on, is that Al Gore is indeed a hypocrite. I remember him harping on everyone to conserve power, when his electric bill is 30 grand a year. What a douche-whistler.

I don't really mind SUV's. If thats what a person wants to drive, and they can afford it, it's their choice.
People that drive while talking on the phone bugs me a whole lot more.
But thats a different thread.

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I am digging on biochar.

I drive about 10,000 miles a year, but dammit I'm going to do it in the vehicle of my choice - a crew cab pickup. My contribution to the pollution control can be paid by the gas companies that are totally fucking me on price per gallon of fuel. The "little people" need to contribute, well I'll call BS on that because this is the problem of the oil companies. Had they put the technologies in place that were available years ago, pollution control would already have happened. This country's politicians are bought and paid for by the oil companies and I find it very hypocrytical for someone like Al Gore to tell me that I need to drive some kind of crappy little electric car to save the planet now; when they could have saved the planet years ago but were too busy making money.

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The following is an embellishment of a story a teacher of mine once told:

You're walking quickly toward the center of a brick wall. If you keep walking toward the wall, you're going to smash your face.

People who complain about this or that "crisis" or cosmic problem -- they're yelling at you to stop before you hit the wall. That makes sense, doesn't it?

But, my teacher said, what if there's a door just a step off center of the wall? A door that's in the shadow right now, a door that you can only see when you get close to the wall? A door that, when you get to the wall, a simple and single step to the right takes you through to a wonderful room full of opporunities you never saw before? A door that, do you come crashing to a stop the way the complainers want you to, you'll never see. A door that, do you listen to your terrible fears, you will never open.

So, what do you do? Do you continue your headlong plunge toward the wall, in faith that the door and greater knowledge will appear? Or do you take counsel of your fears and your-still limited knowledge, and sacrifice the potential opportunity for the safety of avoiding a potential crash?

I know where I stand.

In the latter part of the 18th century, T. Robert Malthus, armed with cutting edge knowledge of economics and agriculture, forecast population increasing at a rate beyond the land's ability to support it with food lest drastic measures were taken. And, missing the great transformation that trade and industrialization was working on the world economy, was most spectacularly wrong.

When I was in college, the Club of Rome, armed with cutting edge knowledge of economics and natural resource use, forecast unavoidable limits to growth that, unless drastic measures were taken, would exhaust key resources in my lifetime. And, missing the magic that trade and technological change was working on the world economy in the last half of the twentieth century, was most spectacularly wrong.

I don't know if the global warming "experts" have it right or not. Like Malthus, like the wonks at the Club of Rome, they have some cutting edge scientific knowledge at their backs as they forecast doom and gloom.

But I know where my faith lies. It does not lie with those whose understanding of the earth and its elements remains dwarfed by their ignorance. Those who, despite their PhDs and their scientific papers and their political/marketing skill that all dwarf mine, are so overcome by their hubris that they forget how small is the ratio of what they know to what they do not know.

My faith lies with man's ingenuity to overcome and grow. To discover those doors when they need to be discovered.

Not because of government regulators and blue ribbon task forces made up of Nobel Laureates and Ivy League PhDs. Those people have always ended up following the Malthuses and the Clubs of Romes and the rest of the spectacularly wrong.

No, my faith lies with those who, despite the know-everythings who turn out to be know-not-nearly-enoughs, find new doors and new opportunities.

And yes, it is faith. Because until we reach that wall, we don't know what is possible in terms of doors. Yes, if we don't listen to today's know-everythings, we might crash into that wall without finding the door we need.

But I'd rather have faith in the discovery of new opporunities, than a faith that requires me to content myself with solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.

So I believe.

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Formo - Even if we had an all-out nuclear war, the only thing we'd do is cause massive extinctions (including our own). The Earth will still exist until the sun becomes a red giant and absorbs it in about five billion years or so (someone who knows their solar science can correct me on this for the more exact figure).

That doesn't mean we should be sending too much carbon dioxide into the air we breath.

Now limits on Freedom, I have a problem with. If you want to get rid of limits of our Freedom, I think our priorities are out of whack then. First off, get rid of every single gun law there is in this country. Then get rid of the war on drugs. Completely. Then get rid of the IRS. Completely. Legalize prostitution. Legalize gambling. Get rid of Homeland Security. Get rid of all this stuff that's a waste of my taxpayer money and encroaches on our Freedoms and Pursuit of Happiness.

We should be paying a national sales tax as the IRS has too much information on how we spend our money and that's a much bigger hindrance to our Freedoms than global warming. There's no legitimate reason for an IRS, and imagine the money we can save. Plus, taxes are so high that they're actually hurting development and most importantly, future job growth.

Much bigger fish to fry than global warming. I don't see why people are freaking out about global warming losses to Freedom when we got the war on drugs (which renders the 4th Amendment obsolete), gun laws, and a tax agency that knows pretty much EVERYTHING about you, and a government agency that is attempting "total information awareness."

Let's get our priorities straight.

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True, Zombie.
Think about it.......you go to the store, swipe your "savers club" card, and they immediatly know EXACTLY what you buy. Same with charge cards. Unless you buy EVERYTHING with cash, the government will know EVERY move you make.
As i have said before, a country could take us over without firing a shot. Just get into our computer system, and they will OWN us. No one could buy or sell anything. We depend WAY too much on computers.
This country will be long gone before "global warming" does any real damage. The freedoms we know will be gone.
That should scare people that have kids and grandkids more then how hot the planet is. But thats just my opinion.
They keep us "glued" on "global warming", while they take away everything near and dear to us.

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True, but this isn't about having an all-out nuke fest. This is about the 'supposed' over emitting CO2. Which is being falsified soo much that the government wants to regulate how much is being emitting. Which will be just as wrong as the gun laws, or IRS, or all that other stuff you talk about.



Like I said.. The regulations that the government wants to slap on CO2 emissions are just as wrong as the issues you bring up in your last paragraph. Which, BTW, are issues I agree with you on.

What I believe to be a bigger problem, is the mindset that this country is well on the road of having. Which is that more government control is the answer. That the 'evil' is the private corporations, and if we get the government to 'regulate' them more, that we'll all be ok. When the government is no better than the greedy corporations.

We as a nation need to stop looking at the government for answers or to take 'care' of issues, and start taking responsibility for ourselves.

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I never said anarchy. The whole reason our country was born is under attack with all these regulations and taxes and such. But the general public doesn't care or know, because they are too busy being 'plugged in' to the TV and to what the mainstream media fills their heads with.

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Someone should seriously make a thread about overpopulation because that's a lot more dangerous to this planet than global warming is.

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