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What always drove me nuts about this issue was that when the Green movement finally addressed pollution in a way corporations would understand (re: "Hey guys! Lets stop fighting! You can actually make fistfulls of money by switching to clean energy technologies, without completely frying the environment! It's true!"), that move was used as a tool by corporate propagandists to disavow climate sciences in general. And we all know this has everything to do with the established oil infrastructure. It's just too damn big to change overnight and there's a lot of old money that simply doesn't want the change to come at all.

Climate science isn't about Left/Right politics, its about an ongoing battle between scientists and corporations. The more honest we can get about that, the more honest the entire playing field will become politically.

Just my humble opinion of course. I respect everyone for keeping it civil

Climate Change is a superb example of the , where the failure of individuals and (in this case) corporations to temper their immediate self interests leads has negative long term effects for all.

The structure of corporations promote short and medium term interests ahead of any long term interests. Until this changes, or at least until the long term impacts of climate change are factored into short term corporate planning and returns, progress on climate change will be insufficient. To date, the best hope for this change comes from the insurance industry, where cover against adverse environmental events is becoming progressively more costly and less available. Unfortunately, this punishes those individuals and corporations who are most affected far more than it does those who are causing the problem, but at least it is starting to bring climate change costs into the current year accounts.

(Regarding the arguments against global warming/climate change, here's a comprehensive rebuttal of the top arguments given by climate sceptics: http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

UHF: First, who said Bush wasn't involved? Not me. Second, if you're going to start with that tired refrain of 'people who disagree are on the Big Oil payroll, " bear in mind that not only have I never gotten a check from BP, but that YOU work for Big Oil. For all we know, you could be getting 'drenched in oil money' to play Devil's advocate. Your accusation is facetious at best, and murderous to the professional credibility that you often claim. Third, thanks for supporting my point with your Bohr reference. I don't know if we suffer from some sort of English/English language barrier, but where I live there's a world of difference between 'telling someone to sit down and shut up' and for 'an expert [to] sit down and quietly accept what others say.' You seem familiar with Bohr v. Einstein, so I think you should realize that what Bohr did was challenge him on technical points (a perfectly reasonable and scientific approach). Allow me to clarify my statement with an illustration. It is antithetical to the scientific method to shout down or crucify those who disagree with you instead of answering substantive challenges by people who you would consider experts if they only agreed with you. This is well exemplified by Edison's use of Tesla's AC current to publicly electrocute animals, simply to vilify Tesla in the interest of self promotion. I'm trying to say that this behavior is bad. I hope that, whether you agree or not, you understand my point. Fourth, I suggest that you find a different font of information, because you seem to be on board with the notion that sources should be authoritative, but Wikipedia is not considered to be an admissible citation by any institution, administration, or individual.

Denny: another factor to consider is that there are some greedy scientists out there, and in some cases they're the ones in charge of release data. In the US, federal funding for climate change research has gone up something like 8000% since 2000, and the NOAA climatologist with whom I spoke told me that he was 'very surprised' at some of the reports coming out of his own department because they contradicted what his colleagues were finding. He said that friends in the EPA had said similar things to him, but that's third-hand so take it as you will. I'm just pointing out that the big corporations aren't the only ones with financial incentive here. Also, I've heard that green technologies can be profitable and I hope it's true - because whether or not we are endangering the planet's temperature, I think we can agree that pollution is bad - but so far the only profit incentives I've seen in the States are 1) from selling green tech to polluters and 2) the gov't providing the 'incentive' of punishing those who don't get on board. I hope I'm missing something here, because all climate change talk aside it would be great to have clean air.

I shall add my £0.02 worth here, because hey, I can!

1. Way back in 1988, when I was doing my BSc in Chemistry, we were talking about climate change. About the only thing different was that the models were a lot cruder - the "this is what's happening" message was pretty much the same (the derision when I talked about farting cows being a major issue to my flatmates haunts me to this day!). My lecturers were saying that the ideas were around in the 70s at least. These aren't new concepts guys...

2. Most of what the environmental lobby are talking about is reduction in resource use. As AG has mentioned, the energy density of anything other than nuclear can't match fossil fuels (though there is some interesting work with solar that could potentially do some good), so it's better to not HAVE to generate the energy rather than do it another way.

3. Again as AG says, the term Global Warming is misleading, as what we're doing is putting energy into the weather system. What I'd expect is bigger extremes, more hurricanes, cyclones (and with more power in them), which is kind of what seems to be happening (****NOTE**** My layman's opinion, I can't back this up!)

3. If the environmental lobby are wrong, but we do what they suggest, we prolong our resources, but maybe loose some standard of living. If what they say is right and we don't do it, we're, well we're all screwed!

To me it's a no brainer...

What you say about the TCPR may be true; I've never gotten information from that particular group. What I'm referring to comes from NYPost/Times and Washington Post mostly, with a dash of WSJ.

His homes don't need to be maintained in a constant state of readiness for his presence. If he's going to have four homes, then the responsible thing to do is to turn the heater off on the way out (wasted green-sourced energy is still wasted energy). Put on a freaking sweater for a couple hours if you're not cozy.

Vehicles: a Lexus hybrid isn't a Prius. It's his responsibility to forego some luxury in favor of better mileage. And owning and maintaining more *personal* vehicles than you can possibly operate at once is ecologically irresponsible, no matter the mileage.

The plane: there is a viable, nearly zero-footprint solution. I maintain that advances in networking render his private jet totally superfluous. Yes, he's in demand, and that affords him the chance to set a new standard for fuel savings: by telecommuting. If he were as committed as he claims, he'd sell his jet and sign up with GoToMeeting, thereby challenging the whole world to match him without sacrificing his ability to provide his insight and feedback at any gathering he's been asked to attend. The only public officials immune to the challenge would be those who regularly must handle sensitive information face to face.

I realize and agree that there's a lot of money at stake for entrenched energy companies, and that they're fighting through legal (and probably also illegal) channels to fend off changes that could cripple their businesses. I'm just trying to state, in the interest of a balanced discussion, that being on the green side of the line does not intrinsically make a person a white hat. I don't think I've mentioned it here, but I live just a couple miles outside D.C., so our national news *is* my local news. I can tell you without reservation that there are scoundrels everywhere, on both sides of every argument, and the constant burnings-in-effigy of the oil companies have gone far beyond tiresome. By all means, fight for what you believe in, just be aware that neither side is composed entirely of heroes.