I admit, I'm really not educated enough to get down in the weeds on this topic. (My forum nickname is in reference to me being in school to be a mechanical engineer, but the money ran out, life - wife/child started getting serious, and I had to take a different path in the IT field).
So I'm the stereotypical skeptic that doesn't have the same education level as the stereotypical GW/CC believer. My biggest issue with it is the political power grab that is inevitable. Also, I believe we would have more success if the angle taken was one of keeping the earth clean, instead of apocalyptic destruction in we don't act NOW. Where "acting" is typically some form of economic restriction.
I don't know. I have very little impact on the issue one way or another. Even who I vote for doesn't matter, as Alabama is a very red state.
Anyway, the debate over the last few pages has been enlightening despite some of the barner snark that has invaded the board. :wink:
Stereotypical skeptic? Not based on my definition but that's another issue
On the political power grab, I agree completely. It is 100% obvious and clear that the Environmental movement was hijacked years ago by the anti-capitalist left, communists, extreme socialists, etc that saw the movement as a particularly effective weapon for harming the right and their "evil corporatist" friends. What's worse is that they are very very happy to lie and even gloss over the sins of their own in order to accomplish their far left goals. They yap on about this and that while hypocritically flying around in massively inefficient private jets and own 10K+ square foot palaces while making a fortune selling carbon credits and other nonsense (looking at you Al Gore)
but what is most sad about all of this is that, in the end, they weren't wrong. I wish they were. I fought alongside the right on this for years. Pointed out these hypocrisies, quoted The Skeptical Environmentalist and Dixie Lee Ray and you know what? I was wrong, as were they, the planet is being effected by our behavior and ultimately we do need to do some things, and fast.
What is most clear to me at this point is that politicians won't solve this. Neither will the free market, mostly because we don't have one. The billionaires running the right are fully aligned with the energy companies and while I don't believe they are the evil characters out of "Captain Planet" they are certainly very willing to line their pockets while looking the other way. The billionaires on the left and their multimillionaire friends in the Entertainment industry are just as bad. I argue this with my lefty friends all the time. Their lies have caused those of us in the middle to question it all. They think the end justifies the means, it doesn't. The means just confuses the issue and causes us to question everything to the point of paralysis, as we can see in this very thread
oh, and for the record I have no idea what to do about this but at this point I've got my hopes pinned on science and technology figuring a way. In the 50's the math all showed that there was no way we could feed the population of earth, then Norman Borlaug came along and saved the world (look him up, he's a freaking hero that should be honored). Who will be the Borlaug of the 21st century? Elon Musk is certainly trying as is Dean Kamen, Peter Diamandis, Bill Gates and several others, but I suspect like old Norman it will be someone unknown quietly working away in a lab and it will start with the best three words in science, "Huh, that's odd".