I think if it was national, economies of scale would come into play and prices wouldn't be that much more. Also, I think as new technologies are developed to achieve greater efficiency, it would offset the price increases. At any rate, I think it's worth investing in a cleaner environment. It's a quality of life issue for me.

I can guarantee you that if we used the gasoline that everyone else did my quality of life would be just as good - in fact it would be better because I'd have more money. Adding "taxes" for no benefit does not increase quality of life.

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Don't Give Me a Defensive Player Who Can't Tackle . . . What Am I Going to Do With Him ? --- Bill Belichick

BTW Hansen who runs realclimate is also biased. He is the guy who got the hockey stick wrong due to his lack of knowledge of stastical analysis. He was also responsible for the erronious data associated with Y2K errors, that artifically raised temps.

While Imhofe is a doubter of anthropmorphic GW, he is merely reporting the objections raised by scientist independent of his role in the Senate.

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If the devil can keep you from asking the right questions he never has to worry about the answers.

I was watching this program and they were showing this beach in Hawaii which was totally made up of particles of plastic. Evidently, the currents gather plastic from other areas and it ends up on this beach (we are talking massive amounts). Its so bad, that all the jelly fish in the area are composed of 50% plastic and that causes lots of deaths to whatever feeds off those fish. Its been a while since I saw the program but was stunned at the time with what they presented.

Well said and I agree 100%
Now... back to the idiotic "Global Warming" distraction so that the polluters can get away with murder (literally) while we try to figure out why it's hot or cold, wet or dry. Meanwhile, the oceans are a dumping ground and every body of water in China is filled with acid.

Keep it up, fools.

He did?
That's cool!...and very radical in this society of middle-of-the-road "moderates" and "centrists". That's why I like Kucinich and Paul so much. Eliminate the IRS? HELL YEAH!

Patters, currently all the alternatives to traditional fossil fuel give somebody a cost-drain. If we subsidize and move out of fossil-fuel only now, we get hit with more expensive energy sources. If we wait until the natural market dynamic kicks in, it's a matter of time, and a period during which we can't produce what we need.

One example is ethanol based fuel, typically with 10-15% gasoline for taste. You get about 2/3 the miles per gallon out of ethanol, and its cost doesn't compete well. Do we subsidize it? It seems like we're headed that way. Of course, the anti-hunger activists are having, well, a cow.

Hydrogen is a great way to expend energy to produce the fuel, then get energy from the fuel. The net budget's pretty bad. But what hydrogen and electric vehicles can do for us is allow our stationary energy to be used in portable form. That's great, as long as our stationary energy production is sustainable. Alas, if based on coal, it is not. And we're back to square 1.

I hate saying it, but right now, it looks more and more like the nuke plants have to come back on line. To me, it seems like we'll need to get past that technology, but once we're using the nukes again and dependent on them, I somehow doubt we'll feel any urgency about solar energy or other competing technologies.

Pity, that. Eh well... I have no kids of my own, just the wife's. And they're not living in the house asking those embarassing "daddy, will there be cars when I grow up?" questions.

PFnV

Whether or not MMGW is the effect of our wasteful use of energy resources will be proven.. this may not be proven for 100 or 200 years, but in the interim there is a need to stop being so wasteful in this capitalist society.. what always make me think is, What if we are all wrong and if we did things differently that this democracy could be preserved and we could be weaned from the addiction of cheap Mideast fuel??

When we are sitting in the rocking chair on the porch of some nursing home and it is finally proven that if we did this than this would have happened, just more stuff to ponder and think about what could have been.

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"The game of football is fun when you win, when you lose it becomes a business"...Junior Seau

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The geo-political pressure point right now is that China is the fastest growing economy in the world, by far. It does this because all business operations in China are strategically planned and guided by the government's national policy, which is to establish world hegemony. They want to conquer the world economically, not with bombs or bullets, which is far too dangerous anymore, with the advent of the nuclear age. By economics the still communist Chinese government wants to dominate the entire world.

So, if the U.S. and the West agree to the massive changes in energy production and usage that the "green" treaties are calling for, the U.S. and West will be reducing their economic capacity at the same time that China is ever-increasing her's. Such a world policy ONLY favors China, while actually penalizing the U.S. and West. This is why the U.S. has balked at such treaties.

If China and India and Russia would all agree to keep faith themselves with these treaties to clean up the environment, the U.S. would be happy to do so, too. As it stands now, however, China, Russia, and India are all demanding exemption from things like "cleaner air, water, and land" because they say they "need" more chance to "develop" (by using old, dirty methods). Result is virtually all rivers in China are polluted to the point of becoming cancer-producing streams, and the air quality in places like Peking, Moscow, Delhi, Mumbai, and Shanghai is far worse than that of Los Angeles 25 years ago, extremely poor.


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"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."

So is Gore, who by some counts has at least 3,000 scientists behind his views. (Wonder if Inhofe has any investments in companies that pollute?)

My argument is not with the scientists, who on both sides I figure are simply trying to do their jobs. As I've said in the past, for the layman, you have to go with the preponderance of evidence and thought and, at least at this point in time, there appear to be far more scientists who support some variant of Gore's position than who support some variant of Inhofe's position. Both sides make some good points, but what I've read has effectively debunked some of criticisms of global warming theories, though some of it does get awfully technical.