Hey Mike,

>You are so right about China and India. They are literally dumping industrial sludge into rivers and there are no meaningful environmental regulations. It's like it was here 50 or 100 years ago.
>
>"Doing what we can for the environment in balance with industrial and societal needs" is the kind of coded statement the Bush administration has been making from the beginning. Not only do they have no environmental achievements, they have rolled back many previous advances. Not even the Reagan administration had this pronounced a pro-business tilt. "If it saves a buck or makes a buck, do it" is the philosophy. I am not going off on an anti-Bush diatribe but his environmental record is truly shameful.

I can't claim to know. I'd have to really research the heck out of this.


>I am not a virulent environmentalist, a "tree hugger" of the type so eagerly pilloried by the money boys. But I do think we ought to take better care of the planet than we are right now.
>
>Starting with the cars we drive. (Pet peeve alert <g>). The U.S. is responsible for a waaay disproportionate % of the world's greenhouse gases and part of the reason is the cars we choose. Even a gas price surge like we had recently only slows us down, it doesn't change our ways. Too many of us still want to sally forth in Hummers, F-whatever trucks that would fill both lanes on most European roads, and SUV behemoths. There are way too many sub-15 mpg vehicles on the road.

Agreed. 100%. The technology has been around for a while and I can't for tne life of me figure out why we don't have more fuel-cell, hydrogen, and elecric vehicles. I drive about 30 miles a day roundtrip and I'd love to do it in an electric or hydrogen car. Where can I buy one?


>If I were elected President -- yeah, like that's going to happen -- my first challenge to the nation would be to come up with an affordable alternative to gasoline and/or oil. We did the Manhattan Project. We put a man on the moon. Why can't we do this? Not only would we be doing the earth and future generations a favor, we wouldn't be drawn into idiotic misadventures like the war in Iraq just because they have something essential to our economy and culture. Then we could tell them to drink the oil.

Putting your politics aside, Iraq = oil which I can't agree with, we don't need a Manhatten Project. We need a supportive environment for the technologies that already exist.

>
>>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.
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>>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.
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>>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.
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>>This is such a great and deep topic and there are so many sidelines and nuances.
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>>>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.
>>>>
>>>>A normal volcano eruption will put more crap in the air than all human activities combined will in a given year.
>>>>
>>>>What bothers me is how this has become a political debate and not a scientific one.
>>>>
>>>>>>I really don't know if there is global warming.
>>>>>
>>>>>We're lay people. The expert consensus is that it exists and caused by humans