If you want to talk actual science, please reference the UN's own studies that show open air cookstoves producing the same greenhouse gas issues as the combined global vehicle fleet. Also, while there's increasing regulation of vehicle emissions, nothing is being done about these cookfires. Query, too, how much methane is produced by ruminants and whether anything is being done about that - or how much methane was produced by the pre-1860 herds of bison and African plains species.
In the 1970s, the science was "clear" that we were going into a new Ice Age and we'd all freeze to death. In the 1990s, it was "clear" that the temperature was going to skyrocket due to "Global Warming" and that we were all going roast. Today? It's "clear" that neither of those were accurate and we've just defaulted to "climate change", while we're constantly overlooking certain variables and discovering new ones.
Yes, that's part of the science. And your asking me why we're not doing anything about it...again, because I believe the science doesn't mean I sign on to what the left has to say about it.
As for the 1970's...sure, perhaps they're all wrong again. But the prudent thing is to err on the side of caution. The solid science is pointing to one thing right now. It's not real smart to just ignore it on the off chance it might be wrong.
Again the cardiologist analogy. You have a heart condition. The doc told you to lay off of the cholesterol in 1970. But then someone did a study and said that cholesterol doesn't cause heart attacks. Finally, 20 years later we find out there's good and bad cholesterol. Meanwhile you still have this underlying heart condition. Which would be the prudent course of action? Follow what the best science has to say right now, or just ignore it all on the off chance they may be wrong?
Look, I'm all for energy independence and getting off oil about 30-f'kin'-years ago just so we don't have to dick around with the ME. For me, the biggest missed opportunity of the last 1/2 century was Reagan NOT launch a new "space program" on energy right after the Oil Embargo and pouring everything we and the Europeans had into getting off oil so we could tell the Saudis and the Arabs to pound sand (literally).
What you're saying is act cautiously and prudently. Of course. The problem is that the hardliners on both sides want none of that. The left wants to castigate everything as if the science is indisputable (which it isn't) and that oil and the West are to blame totally for everything (which they aren't). Never is a word said about China, for example, who added the equivalent of the entire US coal fleet to their inventory LAST YEAR ALONE and with zero emissions or environmental controls. The right wants to drill everything, right here and right now, and put nothing into new fuel sources or efficiency or new options for electricity, vehicles, etc. Both are stupid to a catastrophic, suicidal degree.
That said, the science isn't settled, isn't proven, and the biggest factors aren't being focused on. Until those things change, no difference can be made.
