Steve: You can argue climate change until the cows come home. Neither side has produced concrete evidence that we are either causing it completely or not influencing it at all. I rather suspect that it is somewhere in the middle.
The trouble I have with those denying human influenced/created climate change is that they tend to use their doubt as an excuse to maintaining the status quo.
Lets take our reliance on fossil fuels as an example, I know people who let their cars idle for hours at a time in the winter, drive a block to check the mail, etc. When I rib them about it they just say things like "global warming hasn't been proven and as an Albertan it's my right to idle my car all day if I like so to hell with the hippies"
But... whether you believe in global warming or not, peak oil or not, there are a million other benefits to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Anybody who has seen the summer "smog" engulfing a North American city will see the benefit to reducing the number of cars on the road. Is that smog contributing to Global warming? Probably, but even if it isn't wouldn't it be nice to get rid of it?
Less cars on the road would also go a long way to solving the "obesity crisis" that all the healthcare providers are so worried about. Think of how much weight the fatties would lose if they walked two blocks to McDonalds instead of driving there everyday.
There are so many other benefits to investing now in alternative energy and the risks of not doing so are so high that it floors me that we aren't doing more. Unfortunately, I think North Americans are too lazy and too spoiled to change. I think we need to see gasoline get to a price point high enough that people re-think their lifestyle. Same with heating fuel and fossil fuel powered electricity, until then we're stuck just watching it happen.
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