NASA reports tha ice caps are melting at an "alarming rate." Will Americans under Dubya take any action? I won't hold my breath....even though that decision could be fatal in itself under Bush's environmental policy.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031024/ts_alt_afp/us_environment_climate_031024133656afp/20031024/ts_alt_afp/us_environment_climate_031024133656

Does anyone have an opinion on the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003? I haven't read or heard too much coverage of it in the media, but I believe it's coming up for a vote soon in the Senate.

Ya know, there's a lot of evidence that the average temperature of the earth has been going up and down forever. I seem to recall that some have suggested that the Renaissance was brought about by record harvests caused by higher average temps.

So is this really caused by man or just other upswing?

According to scientists, the climate is getting hotter, this is a fact. Now the question is : is it too late to do something ? I think we should take this question very seriously because the consequences will be catastrophic.

Progress about the arctic deterioration is movin' at... glacier speed...

Dubbya has... TIED... the hands of our own environmentalists ta show he's... KNOT... interested...

He also blacked out most of an EPA report recently released... Almost nothin' wuz left fer the public ta read... and that is a serious matter...

Not to mention the Kyoto protocol the USA still have not signed.

Originally posted by astrapol2
According to scientists, the climate is getting hotter, this is a fact. Now the question is : is it too late to do something ? I think we should take this question very seriously because the consequences will be catastrophic.

It's definitely a fact - the real question is whether it's caused by man or not.

Or more precisely : in which proportion it is caused by man.

Thats right if the world is warming then it must be ONE mans fault, lets hang Bush and ALL the worlds trouble will go away.:rolleyes:

Originally posted by LionelHutz
It's definitely a fact - the real question is whether it's caused by man or not.

There's little doubt that at least some of it is caused by man. A) More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (and is replacing non-"greenhouse gases" like Oxygen) = more trapped heat and we KNOW there's a lot more (and exponentially increasing) CO2 in the atmosphere since the industrial revolustion. B) If you graph out the global avg temperature over the past centuries, you will see a very unnatural peak coinciding with the industrial revolution. Granted this is circumstantial evidence, but it's way too coincidental for us to ignore like we are.

The real debate centers around how much is caused by man. Of course, a lot of the anti-global warming debate is fueled (haha?) by the deeppockets of oil companies....you find a scientist with an extreme minority position and give him a ton of money and suddenly his opinion gains a disproportionate amount of exposure, creating controversy where there normally wouldn't be any.

As for the Kyoto protocol, I will grant Bush one thing: it's pretty pointless to restrict 1st world countries w/out offering any restrictions on 3rd world nations, which are expected to be the source of the majority of future greenhouse emissions.

There's a lot of talk lately of alternative fuel vehicles, be they fuel cell, hybrid electric, or whatever else is being developed. I submit that the places to begin to use these technologies are in the emerging nations where not everyone has had access to personal vehicles as the West has for the past 100 years or so. China, for example, certainly does not yet have gas stations & truck stops throughout the country. Introduction of these new products to an emerging society that has not learned to love the sounds of big V8s rumbling on 100 octane leaded will not be as much of a step as adding this technology to the US and making it work. It took nearly 25 years in the US just to make the change to unleaded fuels. In Europe, it took even longer. Making this work elsewhere first will go a long way toward cleaning the environment.

Agreed Es, us Americans would cry if they took that new truck with the hemi away again. Still though we do need to start going to some other type of engine, or eletric motor.

If reducing America's love of giant engines is what we want to accomplish, all we need to do is add 50 cents of tax to every gallon of gas and the rest will take care of itself without any intervention from the government. (Note that I'm not necessarily advocating this!)

Now you did it Lionel,..... gave the government another reason for tax increase, like they need any help. Bad bad bad, now go to your room with no pudding....... you can't have the pudding.

How can I have any pudding if I don't eat my meat?

LOL :D

Build the wall, Israel.