I speak tonight at Connecticut College at 8 p.m. in the 1941 Room of the Crozier Williams Student Union. If you're in the area, drop by. The last time I spoke at Connecticut College, a mob of students began shouting whenever I said something that they objected to, which happened quite frequently. One student stood to obstruct the podium for the duration of the speech. I hope for a more civil reception tonight.

It really is strange behavior. Why stand in front of a lecturn while someone is speaking?

good luck.

I am a student at Conn and want to start by thanking you for coming and sharing your thoughts and sparking debate on our campus. I did have something to say by the end of the question period that I didn't get to, and that is the following: While you may not be a scientist, which you openly admit to, the truth is that there are in fact, many knowledgeable scientists out there in the world (the IPCC, for example) who do have many facts on the matter of global warming. Simply claiming to not be a scientist, and therefore not having any of those facts does not mean that they do not exist, or are not true. Science may not be a "crystal ball," or the answer to everything, but science does allow for us to know a great deal about our changing environment. Also, just because our current president does not happen to be doing anything about these facts does not mean that they are unworthy of consideration, and action. To tag along on a comment made by another student in the audience, while the scare tactics on the topic may at times be overstating the case, and blowing things a bit out of proportion, it is my belief that they are necessary to a certain degree in order to motivate people everywhere to do something about the imminent environmental situation. Evidently, they just aren't scary enough for George W. Bush as of yet. While I agreed with you in several of your threads of discourse, I simply cannot accept your denial of global warming as a serious present and future problem. Here is a link to the most recently released IPCC report: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm Please take a look if not for any other reason than to humor me, and absorb some of the facts they put out there. For a final note, while it may seem ridiculous to you, it truly is the little things each of us as individuals, families, or communities do such as recycling, reducing our waste, and decreasing our water and energy use, that add up to make a difference in the larger scheme of things. The more people taking part individually in such endeavors, the lesser the negative effects we as humans have on this planet. In the end, you may consider me to be just another opinionated college student trying to change your mind on a matter you've already decided upon, and in truth, that's what I am. But I would rather you didn't just write me off in that way, and actually took the time to consider the possibility of a world in which global warming is a very serious reality.

Veronica: There are several reasons to have a very skeptical attitude about global warming. First, there is no such thing as a fact about the future. Second, there are important expert scientists on climate change who disagree with the current leftist lines on man-made global warming. Third, knowing the history of environmental scares and scare-mongering forces any rational person to be skeptical. Fourth, knowing the history of science and its shifts forces any rational person to be skeptical of science at any given stage. Fifth, it is very fishy that the left is using this to demand what they want independent of global warming (reducing emissions, controlling business more, international socialistic cooperation and laws and courts, etc.). Sixth, people on that global warming side have repeatedly admitted to lying or stretching the truth to scare doubters. Seventh, the amount of risk must be considered in light of the cost and likelihood of prevention: if there is a 1% chance your house will be destroyed in a flood in the next ten years, and flood insurance will cost you 50% of you annual income, and there is a 90% chance that the insurance company will not cover your damages anyway, then buying flood insurance is a bad idea.

I think it is very irrational to bet this house on this one, honey.

Veronica, thanks for coming to the speech and for your thoughtful response here. I have looked over IPCC material in the past, though it is too voluminous for me to read in its entirety. There are indeed scientists who believe in the idea of man-made global warming. There are also scientists who disbelieve this idea, or view man's impact on climate as negligible.

You write: "the scare tactics on the topic may at times be overstating the case, and blowing things a bit out of proportion, it is my belief that they are necessary to a certain degree in order to motivate people everywhere to do something about the imminent environmental situation." I think that environmentalists have cried wolf too often. Pesticides, overpopulation, acid rain, the diminishing rain forest, the ozone hole, and global warming have all been cited as potentially catastrophic for mankind. The dire predictions, in each case, never panned out. The effect of continually exaggerating is to ensure that people automatically disbelieve, or are at least skeptical of, what you say.

Nature good; humans bad. Blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, I could use some of that global warming cause' I'm freezing my A off up here!

Why the human-nature disjoint? Are we not part of the natural world? Ants build anthills, we build cars. Is it that we are the most ingenious of the natural world? Well if we are the most whatever, doesn't that mean that we are of a piece with whatever, that is the natural world?

Of course it does Webster. But the Global Warming Scam doesn't work unless the scam artists pushing the agenda can't convince people to feel that it's their fault that the environment is screwed up to the point where global weather patterns are affected.

Humans are fine and getting better all the time. Particularly with regard to creating better technologies that make our environment/world a better place to live and that elevate our quality of life.

The Global Warming crowd has created a new industry and although some innovations might come out it, I see a lot of Al Gore salesmen types making tons of money from it culminating with the majority of the effort resembling something like the creation of the Pet Rock.