Later in his “blessay” he mentions that “Jim” has a, “vested interest, a deeply vested interest, in this whole issue.” Furthermore he quotes, “It doesn’t of course make any difference that he is a very senior figure in a company that…..no, I want to protect his anonymity so I’ll just say that he is in the fossil fuels business.” Hell, Helen Keller could see that good ole JimBob was in the coal business in WV!!!

So much for that. I’m not concerned with anonymity…..everyone in my business knows I’m the only one dumb/naive enough in our industry to allow a visit such as Stephen’s to occur in the first place. I’ll touch on that and the details leading up to his visit in my next post…..

“Jim”

As for the environment, there’s all sorts of evidence, from the hokey to the downright scary – I admit, I’m still on the fence. I find it difficult to fully believe that us human rabble can have such a profound effect on the planet.

Global warming as they call it may be the result of our hobnail boot stamping all over the place or on the other hand simply a result of the planet’s constant state of flux.

This planet will keep turning, disinterested in the little human drama we all take so seriously. Coastlines will change, landmasses, types of species, I wager it will go on long before we have moved on or away.

That said, I try, to keep my carbon foot print down as much as I can. I’m not the best eco warrior out there by a long shot, but I’m not the cavalier litter dropper I might sound like.
Whether we are responsible for the changes in climate, or not, I think it’s downright shameful how we treat the planet, and to top it off, almost suicidal.

Stick almost any other animal in an enviroment of some sort, and they’ll pick a corner in which to poo, and keep the rest clean and disease free as best the can. Not us, no. From litter to landfill, we’re destructive, and dangerous, (we’re many other things too mind you, wonderful, sweet and kind, don’t get me wrong).

Why do we need the environmental sword of damacles to spur us into action? Isn’t it enough we live here in the first place?

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I love your site. They really look very nice. The articles provided are long enough to provide great content but not so long as to be totally engrossing, if you know what I mean….

I’m an American from a family of debaters — argument and debate over the dinner table (or drinks) is practically the air I breathe. This causes no end of consternation to my wife, who, (as you generalize Americans), inevitably feels she is being attacked.

In short: I highly respect your ability to step back and regard an opposing outlook dispassionately (at least in writing) and logically. You have an ability to break things down into digestible chunks that is unusual, and greatly welcomed when I do find it.

That being said: I disagree with the bulk of your conclusions in this post RE global warming, but would absolutely _love_ to raise some hell about it with you. I’ve always felt that reasoned debate with one’s opponents is the _only_ way to truly hone one’s own arguments, and you are exactly the type of personality that I get along with even when I disagree.

I’m not A, B, or C. I am, it seems, part of group “D”. Yes the planet’s climate is changing; and no, it has little, if anything, to do with man; and the attempts to avoid something that we cannot influence would be actively harmful.

As a guy who lives right next to a giant lake that was carved by a glacier (Lake Michigan), in an area that sees 90 degree (Fahrenheit) days in the summer, I can say _absolutely_ that the Earth’s climate changes, and has been doing so since long before the rise of human Industry. One needs only look at the agricultural villages buried under the ice of Greenland (let me say that again… The _ice_ covering _Green Land_) to know that the planet undergoes large swings in long term climate.

The flipside of that is that dumping massive regulation on people in efforts to avoid such change will do more damage to human freedom than doing nothing. That is, the futile efforts to prevent something that has as much to do with the output of our sun as the output of volcanoes is going to hurt many, and help nothing.

Ironically, it is the vast wealth of industrialized nations that has lead to many of the technological innovations that are causing the USA to become _more_ environmentally sound even as we produce more wealth. I myself have invested in a company (Cree) that is working on making LEDs bright enough to use as lighting in businesses and homes. When they do figure it out, it will be an advance that leaves mercury-filled, flickering, heat-producing flourescents in the dust — 20-year bulbs that produce clean light and run for pennies a year.

Who is creating this? China? No. Russia? No. Germany, perhaps? Nope. The most industrially free society on the planet is inventing most of the technology that will enable _everyone_ to be more environmentally sound in the future, and ironically, the socialistic “environmental” regulations that folks such as you are trying to rationalize with calls of “what could be the harm?” would stifle exactly that innovation.

You’ve got my email. En garde!