More than 150 nations agreed to pursue a second round of Kyoto Protocol emissions cuts at the United Nations climate conference that ended last week in Montreal. The United States declined at the conference to participate in the negotiations of this next wave of forced cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. "It's something else that's driving this," Eileen Claussen, a former Clinton administration official and environmentalist, said of the Bush administration's contrarian position, "and it's not rational. I think it's ideology."

What's that cliche about a stovetop item calling another cooking implement black? Perhaps the Bush administration believes the restrictions would hurt the U.S. economy, or are based on bad science, or won't alleviate global warming, or are heavy-handed in mandating one standard for the entire world, or more accurately the entire First World. There are any number of reasons not to follow the pack that have nothing to do with ideology.

The southern polar ice cap has been melting on Mars for at least three years. The Earth has been in a period of global cooling, some scientists refer to it as an ice age, for tens of millions of years. Call me a neanderthal, but I don't blame sport-utility vehicles, factory smokestacks, or hairspray for these instances of climate change. Solar activity, variation in Earth's orbit, interstellar dust, volcanic activity, plate tectonics, and ocean currents have all traditionally played a greater role in climate change than, say, the Ford Explorer. To the extent that global warming is taking place, might these natural phenomenon, rather than human activity, be the main cause?

Bring it on! I want to be in shorts and a t-shirt in January while sitting at the beach in Worcester!

Isn't it curious that while they're blaming Bush for passing on the opportunity to allow junk science to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy, neither Clinton nor his mouth-pieces seem to remember that Slick Willie never even presented the Kyoto Treaty to the Senate for ratification. This might have been because the Senate had passed a resolution 95-0 stating the President should drop it due to its adverse impact on the U.S. economy! Is there ANYTHING Clinton won't say to get applause and adulation?

A former neighbor of mine was a retired NASA scientist and he and I used to disuss the issue of "global warming" frequently. His contention, which I agree with, is that it is the height of hubris to believe that the activities of mankind over a couple of centuries or less has had any significant impact on the earth's ecosystem, let alone to the extent it could have caused any climate change.

What we are witnessing is natural, cyclical climate change. The earth isn't a static environment; it is a dynamic environment which has been in a state of relative flux since the planet was first formed.

The changes in climate that have already occurred and which have been documented by science show a pattern of cyclical changes in climate over long periods of time. This is the norm and it has been a pattern that has existed since before mankind ever walked the earth. There is no evidence to suggest that the current miniscule changes in earth's mean temperature have had anything to do with the activities of humans.

The Left has an agenda to support. That agenda is nothing short of the total transformation of the United States of America from a free constitutional republic to a socialist nation.

That agenda is at the core of everything the Left does. In order to acheive its aims, the Left chose, decades ago, to take the slow, insidious and gradual route of changing America by chipping away at its foundations little by little over time. This was necessary because taking America all at once by force, as the Left did in country after country during the last century, was an impossible goal.

The methodology of the Left calls for the complete discrediting of America and capitalistic free enterprise. One of the many ways in which Left has sought to acheive this goal is by undermining capitalism. If the Left can show, or appear to show, that capitalism has adverse and negative impacts on our world, it becomes easier for the Left to push socialism as the antidote.

Anyone who doubts that there isn't a reason behind all the things the Left does and says and that there isn't a long-range plan behind it has been effectively blinded by the Left's smokescreen. They put up a protective camoflouge by wrapping themselves in the American flag, pretending to champion human rights and by generally trying to resemble their enemy, so as to disguise who they really are and what their true agenda really is. This works to the extent that most conservatives go on thinking the Left is simply a harmless bunch of deluded crackpots. As long as the majority of conservatives believe this, they will remain blind to the fact that all leftist organizations have a common goal and are working together to acheive it. Many within their ranks are growing impatient to see a socialist America within their own lifetime and their impatience shows up, now and then, when they reveal their true agenda.

Even the majority of Democrats, who are not overt radicals, are unwittingly supporting and aiding this agenda, so it is not necessary for everyone on the Left to even know the full agenda they are working toward, let alone for them to be consciously attempting to bring it about. The Left has, since its inception, relied on deluded dupes and useful idiots to carry out its plan.

Every liberal Democrat who believes global warming is a manmade phenomenon and who campaigns for measures to transform America with the idea of "saving the planet" has actually been enlisted in the campaign to transform America into a socialist nation. If you doubt this, ask yourself why it is they want us to resemble the socialist nations of Europe, who are all on the Kyoto bandwagon?

This is only one of myriad ways in which the Left is chiseling away at America. Some of its methods are economic, some are legalistic (such as the campaigns by the ACLU to decriminalize criminal behavior), others chisel away at Americans' moral fiber, and so on. If you think this is all just coincidental and not part of a grand design by the Left, then the smokescreen has done what it was designed to do.

Melting!!!!

Oh what a world, what a world!

Seems pretty obvious to those of us not enlisted. Good assessment Gary. Well constructed.

The Bush administration deserves enormous credit for resisting this thinly disguised attempt to disadvantage America economically under the pretext of environmentalism and the pseudo-science of global warming.

Scientists cannot even agree on whether global temperatures are rising, falling or staying the same, much less find scientific consensus on what might account for any changes in average temperatures. The administration should use these discussions to unmask the hostile, anti-American agenda that lies beneath this nonsense.

I have a tendency to tune out a bit when politicians, political activists etc start talking about global warming. I should really start paying more attention and be contrarian to the lot.

Something I'd like to be contrary about (for the sake of being contrary), is Dan's comment on SUVs not contributing to climate change relative to "traditional causes". Given the relative short period of time that SUV's have existed on earth, where can comparisons of traditional causes of climate change be made?

Tradition is an irrelevance to relative contribution. Need comparible values (the SPSS suit of software has a nice T-test to check if variables are comparable - if you want to fork out for it).

While I agree that the cause and effect relationship between so-called "global warming" and fossil fuel consumption is pseudoscience, there are significant health conditions that are caused by fossil fuel emissions. Increased cancer rates and asthma rates come to mind. I think it's irresponsible for the citizens of the leading economic superpower to not engage in ferociously pro-environment and pro-American consumerism and I think it would be wise for our national leaders and global corporations to help foster development of environmentally-safer products.

I don't think any of us would argue that fossil fuel emmissions aren't toxic and harmful, but I believe there is ample incentive already for the development of alternative energy sources without crippling our economy. The private sector should, has and does continue to lead in this, as it should. Innovation comes from private industry, not from government mandate or subsidy.

I support the innovation of alternative fuels and energy-generation technologies for the reason that we need to secure our future by making America fully independent of foreign oil. One doesn't have to subscribe to "global warming" to see that we are highly vulnerable as long as we are partly dependent upon our enemies for our energy needs. It would be foolish, indeed, suicidal not to pursue ways of getting off the oil fix, "global warming" or not.

Fossil fuel emissions may very well increase the risks of cancer and asthma, as well as other ill effects. But any cost evaluation is completely meaningless without acknowlegement of the countering benefits. Technological advancements, overall reduction of hazardous and debilitating work conditions, increased productivity, increased control over environmental conditions (heating and air conditioning) and other achievements are directly attributable to the use of fossil fuels and the resulting increased longevity and quality of life VASTLY outweigh any increased risk TO health and quality of life.

That's like saying that we should quit eating because some food poses health risks. You may never be obese or have high cholesterol by taking such action, but I daresay your life expectancy and quality of life will suffer dramatically.

Curtis
aka Sailorcurt

I hate to sound like a broken record, but what if it is man made, and what would the effects be?

I don´´t know, but I doubt any of us do. Just because temperatures changed in the past, doesn,t mean that it was an experience that we would want to relive nor does it mean that the earth--now being largely inhabited and civilized by man could substain it.

Even if there isn´t global warming, I don´t see what good can come out of pumping millions of tons of smoke into the atmosphere, so why not err on the side of caution

If we're really in for the kind of climate change that is being predicted by both respectable climatologists who say it's natural, and those on the left, who say it's manmade, there won't be anything we can do to stop it, eihter way.

Certainly, if it isn't man-made, there is nothing we can do but ride it out, since it would then have nothing to do with anything we've done in the first place. In other words, if it's natural and we didn't cause it, we can't stop it or control it, either.

As for the idiotic notion that, if it's manmade, all we have to do is reduce emissions to somehow stop catastrophic climate change, the science this is all based upon says otherwise. The initial reports of ozone layer damage, in the seventies, said that what had caused the supposed ozone hole was the CFCs accumulated in the upper atmosphere from the 1940s to the 1970s. Assuming this is true, then what has been released into the atmosphere since the seventies would go on damaging the ozone layer well into the middle of this century. In other words, even if the environmentalists are right, the damage is already done and bringing emmissions to a dead halt right now wouldn't produce any noticable results for generations yet. Meanwhile, we'd all be returned to living in pre-industrial conditions overnight.

Marcus and PMA, a couple of points to ponder. First, the air we breath is cleaner today than it was twenty years ago. Could it be cleaner? Sure! We could simply ban all automobiles! But such a proposal requires we do a little Cost-Benefit An-lysis 101, which requires us to be aware that even if the Kyoto treaty were 100% effective, it's total impact would be to reduce global temps by about .1-.2 of 1 degree fahrenheit. Wow! And that at an admitted cost of trillions (yes, with a "t") of dollars of lost GDP.

And as the life-expectancy of the average American just hit an all-time high of 77.6 or so years, we should ask ourselves just how toxic IS the air, and just how damaging ARE all those nasty carcinogens? Sure, everything could be better, but if we went totally back to nature, are we going to live longer or better? We listened to Rachel Carson's alarmist, and totally inaccurate, message and erred on the side of caution by banning DDT, which, incidentally, has NEVER been proven to act as a carcinogen to humans or wildlife (ever hear of Alar?). Now, millions die every year in Africa and Asia of malaria because the most effective means of eradicating malarial mosquitos isn't used because of erring on the side of caution.

To argue that President Bush and America as a whole isn't pro-environment is to swallow whole the Leftist agenda that just because you don't go along with everything Greenpeace or the Sierra Club advocates, you're an enemy of Mother Nature. This is akin to saying someone is racist because they're opposed to affirmative action.

could the reason the air is cleaner now than it was 20 years ago be the clean air act and other regulations. I can go fishing in the Chesapeake Bay and even the potomac river now. I couldn´t 20 years ago. Is it because of all the lax environmental laws or the clean water act?

Marcus: Might the reason you couldn't go fishing in the Chesapeake twenty years ago have less to do with environmental regulations than with you being two-years old twenty years ago?