OK, another complaint is that global warming is the Democratic version of the Global War on Terrorism. There is no definition of success, there is no end point. Image if all of the Kyoto protocol is implemented and the warming continues. Do you think that Gore will admit that he was wrong? I do not think so.

How can anyone question Gore when he does not say what could be shown to him that he is wrong. A model cannot be prove wrong. All that can be done is attack its assumptions.

But it is really ridiculous to state that Gore doesn’t care about the environment, when he’s spent 20 years caring about it, educating himself and assembling resources about it. Compare that with the Flip-Flop twins Romney and Giuliani, whose views change according to the election they are running in. Romney ran to the left of Ted Kennedy about 10 years ago and Giuliani actually fought for publicly funded abortions.

The only real grounds you have to criticize Gore and Edwards on, is they are rich. But, last I checked- poor men don’t make serious runs for the presidency.

Gore would have much more credibility if he would be honest concerning the real negative impacts. In addition, Gore still has the credibility problem on stack worst case assumptions on top of each other. That is something that is not considered ethical in the risk assessment business. He should make one worst case assumption and then go with the means for everything else. Or if was a real environmentalist, then the environmental models would be Monte Carlo simulations using stochastic variable and with perturbation analysis. (and if you do not understand what I just worst, then why are we discussing environmental models).

If such a model was perform, it would be easist to decide where the highest benefits can be obtained. However, many people suspect that Gore (and others) really do not care that much about the environment but more about increasing their personal power. If that is the case, the scaring people is worst case assumption models does the trick.

If you don’t like Gore’s ideas, fine, but no one in the upper echelons of power is suggesting anything but voluntary limits of hydrocarbons for business, and we all know how well that works!

The issue, as in just about everything else has been stalled by politicization. Who in your party besides McCain and Charles Grassley have done anything to deal with this? Just criticizing Gore isn’t good enough. And he gets a lot of points for caring about the future of the environment, and trying to get some action.

Not exactly the best answer response to a factual argument. Remember, it is the government in China that is sponsoring the programs that are destroying their environment.

However, that does not answer the question that the benefits of going green are being massively oversold (like previous environmental programs) while the costs are being massively undersold.

What Gore is proposing would basically depopulate large sections of the midwest while packing most Americans into tiny high rise apartments in large cities even though that is not what most Americans want.

Before you start overselling the pie in the sky benefits of going green, you should look at the history of RCRA and CERCLA. Everyone though t that there were be a market for clean technologies and that a host of environmental companies would be created. In the end. most of the dirty companies either went out of business or just moved their operations off shore. One of the reasons that many of the old rust belt business closed was due to the risk of environmental liability. Clean air laws did not cause new, cleaner refineries to be built. It just caused no new refineries to be built.

You should also look at the Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburgh areas and see how great environmental laws have been for their economies. Do you really want to do that to the rest of the country.

Also, you should look at NEPA. Environmental costs are not allowed to be considered and thus, many environmental costs were passed on to business.

And if you know anything about DC schools, you know that no one has been able to do much of anything about them, because of the bureaucratic red tape that surrounds making any kind of change at all. Any change that can be made has to be made at the local level.

Just as those on the left cannot find anything great to say about Bush, the right continues to criticize Al Gore no matter what. If it wasn’t his house, or his plane it would be something else.

As Bill Kristol said, Gore won the prize for doing nothing but being a bloviator! And of course Bush could not possibly rise to the occasion and place a call to congratulate him. It just rubs salt in the wound that Gore is greeted overseas like a conquering hero, while Bush is greeted by angry mobs burning the US flag. That’s what this is really about. Gore will have a real legacy, while Bush had to pretend to care about the issue in order to have something positive for his legacy.

You insist on making this about Gore, an inept way of avoiding the topic of global warming.

Did Carter’s leadership by wearing a sweater in the WH nstead of raising the thermostat convince the opposition? Then it was another excuse.

This is all about killing the message by killing the messenger, coming and going.
You are not addressing yourself to leadership in propmoting iideas at all, whether coming or going.

Talk about the message, if you want to contribute to our understanding.

Personal leadership means more than throwing money at a problem. If he is going to convince people to sacrifice, he should start with his own family. At least Carter put his child in public school so that the liberal elites in DC would not call him a racist. However, Carter failed to do anything that would have made the public schools in DC better. Gore put his kids in very expensive private school and did not care at all at the public schools.

It is the same with his children. Gore’s family is not going to make any sacrifices for being green. Then, why should the rest of us. Politicians need to walk the walk themselves before making mandates on others.

And no, conservatives (and libertarians) are not afraid of change. It is the liberal elite who want to maintain themselves above all others who should frighten everyone.

Gore is making it should like you can cut emissions without any negative externalities. They just is not true. The moveon.org echo machine is making the same claim and they are also very wrong. Just like the left wants to talk about free healthcare for all without discussing taxes or the necessities of layoff millions of healthcare workers, the left is patting itself on the back on global warming while being anit-nuclear Luddites who will cause millions of people to lose their jobs, homes, and standard of living.

Another faux argument is- China and India are worse polluters- so why should we do anything? I guess they don’t realize how childish they sound.

Conservatives like SD are always finding excuses to do nothing- because they dislike any change in lifestyle or government infringement on their choices. That is why it has taken 30 years for anyone in power to even listen to the evidence.

SDPls spare us and just admit it!

Do you really think you will see leadership from Al Gore. Does someone with a huge house, car service, private planes have any ability to “sway” demand.

Look at Al Gore’s children. Are anyone of them leading the way for a green America by become a material scientist or mechanical engineer? No, they are playwrights, aspiring politicos, and music business executive wannabes. Where is the leadership of Al Gore when he cannot convince his own children to be green, live in a small apartment, take public transportation, or even ride the bus?

When I see Karenna Gore-Schiff riding the subway or waiting for a bus, then there will be real leadership and probably not before.

When ‘what the people demand” rule is allowed to be the sole guide, then we are at the mercy of the poor jusdgment behind many demands by the ‘people.’

Demand affects the price of ‘green’ solutions and thus their effectiveness overall.
This is where leadership comes in, IMO. If we can sway demand to make war popular, then we should be able to sway demand to help in other matters.

Leadership in shaping demand is what we have been lacking and still lack.
If we correct the demand, we reduce the temptation by governement to apply mandated solutions, that may, indeed, turn out to be very costly.

Even madated solutions can be accepted to a large degree if the proper framework. Rationing during WWII, for example, was generally addcepted as a necessary mandate.

It’s so much about leadership, in the end, to avoid the extremes in reaction and to look for practical solutions.

What do you think is going to happen to West Virginia, west Texas, Wyoming, or any tourist area where people dirve to it is the U.S. massives increases in the cost of energy while outlawing the use of carbon. Places like Lancaster, PA will lose a tremendous amount of business and entire industries will be eliminated. Look at the petrochemical industry in the U.S. and look back at what happened when RCRA became law.

Does it not occur to people what one of the reasons that industry has left the U.S. is that the current governmental regulations make it virtually impossible for it to function. The same can be said of the clean air act.

The message of long standing was killed by killing the messengers, and there is an attempt to do that even today.

The good news is that the message is finlly being heard. I saw a Chevron ad this morning touting itself as a ‘green’ company. We’ll have to see how ‘green’ it really becomes.

The other good news is, that the message is being addressed globally, removing it from US polital wars by an inch or two.

What I’m hoping is that the solution will also emerge as a global one. The need to draw in China, India and other developing countries into the solution is great. The air and the oceans are not national, nor should the solutions for saving them be.

While technological solutions are sought, a way to apply them globally should be sought right alongside.
Here is a chance for the US to redeem its reputaion .
Instead of being seen as the destroyer of anything in the path of national interests, our contribution to addressing global warming globally could be an invaluable asset to our influence in the world, and by extension, to our national interests.