Here's a good place for me to throw in my two pennies.
Global warming is real, in the sense that the 10 hottest years ever recorded have all occurred in the last 10 years. BUT it is completely false in the sense that those pushing for dramatic steps are economic redistributionists more than anything else. The reality is that global warming is primarily caused by the fact that the sun itself is growing hotter. The phenomena of global warming is largely out of man's control. For many people - scientists included - the notion that something is out of human ability to change or control is too terrifying to accept. It means we're in the power of something or someone beyond ourselves.
Let me begin with the "well, duh!" argument: we're being told that temperatures and water levels are at their highest level in 130,000 years. Well, if we are to accept that the present levels are being caused by fossil fuels and aerosol cans and what not, then it stands to reason that human beings were making some pretty gnarly cars 130,000 years ago (and I thought my '77 was old!). Global warming is a cyclical phenomena: it was out of man's control before, and it is out of our control now. If we were a little smarter, maybe we'd think about where we lived a little more carefully.
Now for the more scientific argument. First of all, scientists have an awful track record regarding global warming: thirty years ago, the broad scientific community was claiming that we were headed for a disasterous period of global COOLING with all the same vigor that they are now claiming that we are experiencing disasterous global warming. The one degree "spike" that has been recognized to have occurred globally is within the margin of error of our ability to measure the overall global temperature. The fact is that this is not about science at all, but an economic and ideological agenda that trumps science. Secondly, there is a better scientific explanation for any warming trend that we have been observing than automotive and industrial environmental pollution. It turns out that there have been measurable changes in the sun and the earth's magnetic field - which are clearly NOT caused by environmental contamination - that better explain the phenomena of global warming.
Scientists have been monitoring solar cycles since 1775, and noting a regular repeating phenomena of 11-year cycles of sunspots, followed by 11-year cycles of minimal solar activity. This 22-year cycle has occurred regular as rain... until recently. In 2003, in the midst of a minimum cycle of reduced solar activity, an unusually powerful series of solar storms took scientists completely by surprise. A 2003 study by NASA determined that the sun was getting both hotter and brighter. Dr. Richard C. Wilson of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote, "Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late 19th century. If a trend, comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the 20th century, it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years." It is the SUN that is changing, people. Driving around in your silly little hybrid car will have a virtually meaingless impact on the phenomena of global warming.
The phenomena that IS occuring in the earth is likewise out of human control. A New York Times article reported that the earth is perhaps 150 years into the collapse of the magnetic field. It said, "The field's strength has waned 10-15%, and the deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelope the earth." Among other things, the field shields earth from solar radiation which destroys the ozone layer that protects the earth from harmful UV radiation.
Frankly, the trend and what could happen in the future reminds me of the words of Jesus in the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24). But it DOESN'T have a whole lot to do with automobiles and industry. So you can tell them where to go stick their hybrid cars and their whole redistributionist policies that force developed economies to dumb themselves down while at the same time giving their wealth to developing nations. The dumbest thing of all is that the Kyoto Accords that the USA was so villified for not ratifying gave the biggest pollutors - such as China, India, and Russia - free rides while it held the US and Europe to stifling emissions levels. China and India are set to produce more polluting emissions than the world collectively produced in the last 150 years. Kyoto was all about redistribution of the global economy and nothing about "fixing" global warming. The US Senate was right in shooting down Kyoto 95-0 in a rare show of unanimous bipartisan agreement.
For the most part, thinking people want more fuel-efficient cars simply because oil and gas prices are so volatile and it doesn't appear that they will be trending downward. We won't be running out of oil anytime soon, but supplies are greatly affected by a huge host of complicating factors which are largely out of all our hands. I hate putting 25 gallons of gas into my 450SEL because I know I'll be doing it again all too soon; but I comfort myself with the realization that 1) I'm driving a beautiful, elegant, classic machine and 2) the money I saved buying this car instead of a hybrid will buy an awful lot of gas.
I'm all for sound environmental policy; the problem is that that both the science surrounding "global warming" and the ideological and environmental agendas it is being used to legitimize are completely unsound.
This diatribe was penned by
Mike
