Collegiate Times

Where to begin. . . .well, first things first, Kyoto is not really so 'obvious' as you make it out to be. Of the nations which ratified the treaty, I don't believe that any of them have, as yet, made any significant strides towards their greenhouse gas reduction goals. The reason? The world's major economies are all run by industries which would suffer tremendous losses were their emissions forced below a certain threshold! The economic results of ratifying the treaty (and following through with what it says) could be as devastating as the environmental consequences of leaving climate change unchecked. Hogwash, you say? That's one of several reasons Clinton refused to sign the treaty when it came to his desk in the mid and late 90's, and it's among the same reasons why Bush refuses to sign it now.

Secondly, you rightly point out that scientific consensus does not in any way guarantee scientific accuracy. But what we see now is that, while most scientists agree that the surface temperature of the Earth is warming slightly, many scientists DISAGREE as to what the CAUSE of that warming happens to be. Some prominent scientists claim that human activities are responsible for the change - others say that the data is inconclusive, and still others charge that the data points to things OUTSIDE the realm of man. Personally, I chalk it up to the Earth just 'doing what she does best,' which is regulating her own ecosystems with a periodic warming and cooling. Does an increase of greenhouse gas emissions help things much? Probably not. But count me among the doubters, at least for now - until I see some data that shows clearly the driving my car every day is directly leading to rising ocean levels, it's unlikely that I'm going to cut back much at all.

retoric, retoric, retoric... "It's like saying you don't believe in gravity." No, you're wrong. Gravity is a scientific law. Global warming is a corrupted scientific consensus based on greedy, data-skewing researchers who found some friends in the government. You can drop environmental hysteria bombs on us all day long, but it's the same old song and dance we've been hearing. And.. "maintain a sustainable planet" ??? Are you serious? Earth is billions of years old. My friend, it's not going anywhere. If you want to prove a point, do so objectively, and scientifically -- and don't try citing the IPCC. You may as well be citing Greenpeace.

rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric***

Kyoto is not a small step in the right direction. It is a huge step in the wrong direction. China, which by some reports now accounts for more pollution than the US and builds a new coal-fired power plant every single week, is effectively exempt from Kyoto, as is India. Any treaty that exempts over one third of the world's population is insane. Kyoto will only have the effect of hamstringing Western economies while letting developing countries do as they please both economically and environmentally. Any agreement that doesn't require the full and equal participation of everyone is worse than useless.

Man oh man. What an idiot! Where to begin... first off: the scientists who say global warming is caused by man have just as much to gain as the scientists who say it is not caused by man or doesnt even exist. Just as you claim those doubting scientists are paid by big corporations the scientists who are for global warming are being paid in forms of grants and research money. It is as much in their interest to keep on plugging this retarded global warming idea, for they get useless funding for it. Second: the earth's surface may be warming, ya but so what --- so is Mar's. Third: it has been shown that even the earth's upper atmosphere is warming, the region that is unaffected by greenhouse gases because they do not reach that high. Fourth: its freaking cold outside today! Fifth: look at the actual unbiased trends, hard cold data, in the past 4 years the earth has cooled down so much that it has nearly erased the warming from the 90s. Thats odd, with all the hot air coming out of Gore's head. What am i on now, six? Sixth: the sun is producing more solar heat which will affect all the plants, refer back to point 2. Is that enough or should i keep going?

Mr. Morris, you write like a five year old. “Big business doesn't care if the world will be uninhabitable in 100 years. They only care if they can make a profit.” You’ve basically taken every bumper sticker slogan and strung them together to create a completely uninspiring, boring letter that we’ve all read 8,000 times since grade school. You mention the studies that “prove” man-made global warming, but you don’t have the integrity to also mention the many studies that disagree with those. You use the typical scare tactics of “more frequent flash floods, erosion, desertification, the disappearance of most of Earth's glaciers, sea level rise, mass species extinctions, forest fires, spread of disease, and refugee crises. It is possible that the human race may literally destroy the planet.” But you don’t discuss any actual data supporting this idea. You fail to mention studies which have shown a decline in severe hurricanes. Then you use the old Marxist line: “Because the government does not answer to us. It answers to its corporate overlords -- the people who finance their elections and wars.” Maybe it’s not the skeptics who have a political agenda, maybe it’s the global warming pushers who do.

Jeez, some of you sound like the Tobacco Institute...no scientific link between lung cancer and smoking either but after awhile it was kinda obvious. Well...I understand the denial since there isn't hell of a lot we can do about China, India, etc industrializing (coal plants & autos). Actually, the world is increasing carbon emissions by switching to much cheaper coal...

And once again, the opion board prints blatantly wrong information and political hyperbole under the guise of an 'editorial'. The Kyoto Protocal does not and did not require all participants to decrease CO2 output. From the time Russia signed the treaty, it's CO2 has only increased, all allowed under the Kyoto Protocol. Further, India, China, Brazil and 134 other countries have no obligation to decrease emissions and in fact are fully allowed to increase emissions as much as they desire under the Protocol. In fact, China's increase in CO2 alone has wiped out any decrease the entire EU is required to accomplish under the Protocol. Australia is allowed an 8% increase as well. Now, lets look at what will happen if the US were to sign the protocol. We will be looking at the further loss of manufacturing and energy intensive jobs overseas, most likely to China. This will only end up increasing CO2. How? Lets look at where the energy comes from. China, which has no obligations under Kyoto, generates almost all of it's power from Coal. Further, the environmental regulations in China are negligible and corruption means they are hardly enforced. All this means is that if you care about the environment, you want to keep the manufacturing in the 1st world where decent environmental laws are enforced. Signing Kyoto would send even more jobs overseas.

The problem with global warming talk is that people frequently jump to conclusions. Things like rising global mean temperature and the correlation between CO2 and this rise in temperature are observations. Things like "can't you see that people are causing global warming because the graphs match?" are conclusions. Unfortunately, people often leap from observation to conclusion without due diligence. Some food for thought: “no average global temperature calculated for the Earth… can have any physical meaning… any more than an average telephone number has any meaning for using the telephone system.”-Ess ex, McKitrick and Andresen

You could also say that autos have no correlation with the smog and haze hanging over cities like Los Angeles or Mexico City. Lets do a 10 year study. Just smaller versions of what could happen if we pump out too much CO2 on a global scale

You finish by saying human beings are not above nature, but isn't that what the rest of your article presupposes? The earth's climate has fluctuated constantly throughout its history, but now we are the sole cause of any change?

I'm not so sure that's an apt analogy, Dan. While there do exist smog and haze problems in LA and Mexico City, those problems are fairly well 'contained' to those cities and surrounding areas. I'm not so sure that we can simply extend the argument - "look at what is happening there - the whole world will look like that soon!" - since the smog, for the time being, doesn't seem to be proliferating the further outlying areas.

Yeah, that's the mountains which tend to bowl the smog in those cities. The question is whether the world can naturally process all the extra CO2. China and India (2.4 billion) wanna be like us (take time)and that's a hell of a lot of cars and coal plants

Actually, I think China and India both have exceeded the US in terms of pollution . . . I remember seeing a statistic to that effect somewhere else. It'd be more interesting, I think, to see how much 'extra' CO2 is actually being produced - that is, in addition to the CO2 the Earth naturally produces. Are our CO2 levels really higher now than ever before in Earth's history? And do we have any conclusive evidence that the increase in CO2 has directly let to adverse effects on climate? The fact that the temperature has risen AND that CO2 levels have risen doesn't necessarily indicate that a correlation exists between the two . . .

As far as I know, Kyle, China is still #2 and India won't be in the big leagues for another decade or so. Regardless, do you really want to wait until all the evidence is in and it's too late to avoid the worst effects of climate change? It seems prudent to me that we do our best to mitigate carbon emissions even if it does have some effect on the economy.

Fine Gabe, how about you go live under a rock where you belong. And Kyle is right --- China is number 1 with India close behind us at 3.

According the UN's climate change people's website, in terms of C02 emissions the US is #1, China is #2, Russia is #3, and India is #4.

To the people who think they can use google... try looking up data that is from 2007 or 2008, not 2004. Or maybe even try listening to the news from time to time. China is 1, we are 2

Gabe, I'm not arguing that the climate isn't changing. And I'm not arguing that it will certainly not turn into an immediate problem in the future. But what really irks me about the whole debate is that people like Al Gore (And, evidently, Brett Morris) look at this as a moral crusade - and when I say crusade, I mean like the Crusades. It's become a take-no-prisoners, 'what I say goes' kind of campaign and it's taken all of the science and rational discussion out of the process. There is no 'freedom to dissent,' and that's dangerous when we start simply assuming scientific truths when the evidence doesn't really lend itself to supporting such claims. Like I said, climate change MAY be a huge, important issue - but it might just be that the Earth is 'doing it's thing.' Rational debate on the subject is great - but in the public realm, we aren't really seeing that anymore. And that's a real shame.

Hey, "One who can think" - why don't you cite your source?

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions...still, we shouldn't push our luck! http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

There are thousands of scientists across the globe who say this is just another warming process the Earth is going through. If global warming is real, explain why the oceans are COOLING. Explain how China had it's coldest and most brutal winter in terms of snowfall in 30+ years. Explain how Saudi Arabia saw snow this winter. Explain how some parts of the U.S. had the coldest winters in 50+ years. Global warming is just another scare tactic by the Democrats to exert more government regulation and control over all of us so they can justify their BS tax hikes. Remember the heterosecxual AIDS scare tactic, or the DDT scare tactic the Dems came up with?

As opposed to the $4 trillion in added debt left to us by our wonderful tax cutting president. Just hand the bill to our kids. Yeah, "scare tactic" for control sounds familiar..restrict civil liberties?...9/11!....war in iraq?...9/11! trash the environment?...9/11! I feel so much safer now that everybody takes off their shoes before boarding an airplane..

The tax cuts didn't actually cut federal revenues - federal income actually increased as a consequence of the tax cuts. The problem is that spending in general didn't get curbed, and as a result of that the debt hasn't decreased. Look at the numbers before you make inane remarks. . .

Try growing yourself out of debt with a credit card...oh right, that's stupid. Republican or Democrat...no illusions, they will continue doing same thing. "Look at the numbers before you make inane remarks..." Yeah, please do.. US National Debt http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

The national debt isn't the ONLY number to look at, though. The point here is that, tax cuts or no, the only way to curb the debt is to cut back spending in other areas and apply the savings directly towards debt reduction, just like what every responsible borrower does. You are right in asserting that most of the 'mainstream' candidates on both sides of the aisle are wont to do just that, though - however, there is a growing caucus of Republicans, at least, who are urging at least a bit more fiscal restraint. It's a step in the right direction - but only so much as the public plays along. The fact of the matter is, there isn't any way to reduce the debt without cutting this or that social program, and given the public's dependence on governmental assistance anymore, it'll be like trying to take a fish out of the mouth of a hungry bear to eliminate those money-sucking programs.

If the ice is melting we'll just have to learn to deal with it. I think those in the Midwest would appreciate warmer weather. Alumni from Denver.