As to your latter question about the 5% ... first off, great question. Secondly, my honest answer is that I don't know. I don't know if that 5% makes a difference. I find it hard to believe that 5% tips us into some heat-based oblivion from which there is no recovery when looking at the cataclysmic history of the climatic cycles of the Earth. On the other hand, I am not a climatologist.

And, yes, I think we are doing what we can for the environment in balance with industrial and societal needs. Could we tweak it up a bit? Sure, always. But we've made great strides in environmental protection since 1970 or so.

On the other had, the greatest environmental threats from industry over the next 20 years are not found in North America but in China and India. There you have industry exploding in capacity with little or no controls. Anything we do here, no matter how draconian, will be offset by rampant growth there.

This is such a great and deep topic and there are so many sidelines and nuances.


>Then why are most scientists on one side of the issue? Most of the politics I see are the denials from the oil companies and those beholden to them. As Doug Dodge -- whose politics are a whole lot closer to yours than to mine -- likes to say, follow the money.
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>Let me phrase it an entirely different way. Do you think we are doing what we should be for the environment? Even if we have provided only 5% (debatable), isn't that 5% too much?
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>>No it isn't. That's half right. The expert consensus is that it exists, the debate is how much is human caused. Most climatologists will tell you that we contribute about 5% of the greenhouse gasses into the air.
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>>A normal volcano eruption will put more crap in the air than all human activities combined will in a given year.
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>>What bothers me is how this has become a political debate and not a scientific one.
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>>>>I really don't know if there is global warming.
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>>>We're lay people. The expert consensus is that it exists and caused by humans