Redstate

What we should really be talking about is the film company behind the latest "cause-driven" activist films.

Click here to read up on Jeffrey Skoll (the founder of eBay) and his model of creating campaigns around films like An Inconvenient Truth, North Country, Syriana, and others.

Blogging at RespectfullyRepublican.com

I looked for the address, appears it's not up yet, but soon. Will post as soon as I can find it, hopefully still within the Festivus giving season.

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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?

in Intelligent Design (ID) which as near as I can figure hold as cannon that over the past 4 or so billion years has God every once in a while reaching down and - SHAAZZAMMM - doing an upgrade on some species, like adding eyes. Which sounds a lot like magic and is certainly not science. ID itself has been throughly discredited by science and early editions OPaP did include the word creationism, which is one of the reasons it got kicked out of schools in Delaware. But I don't want to jack an IT tread with a debate about ID.

As for an Inconvenient Truth, it jacked in more than 40 million at worldwide box offices and changed the debate. I don't think anyone is now debating whether GW is happening, it now seems that the debate is focused on the cause and whether or not there should be a response. It does seem pretty clear that one shouldn't be making long term land investments in Southern Florida.

With whom, exactly, was the debate changed? For liberal enviromentalists that already agreed with the premise? There is now a growing discussion about global COOLING (everything old is new again).

$40,000,000 at $8 a pop is 5 million viewers, and as you point out, that is a world audience. Certainly a world changing number, that. How many of those lived in the U.S.? 75%? 3.75 viewers in the U.S? That wouldn't change the demographics of NY or California, much less the world.

You can go back in your cave now. Don't read much, huh?

Thanks for stopping by.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"?

if you have any of that worthless southern florida land, I'll take it off your hands real cheap! That way you wn't get stuck with it when it becomes ocean!

See The World In HinzSight!
Political HinzSight

Isn't that book about Intelligent Design? If it doesn't reference religion then the intelligent designer is, what, space aliens? How can a book that challenges evolution not have religious references?

To simply dismiss any objection to evolution or any of the assumptions that it stands upon as all being religious in nature? There are plenty of reasons to have reservations about evolution for anyone with any training in mathematics, science, or engineering.

The evolution threadjack ends now. It's only funny until you have 200+ comments of several someones getting their eyes poked out.

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Even those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.

Who do you think came up with the idea for Air America? Rove and Haliburton. Air America does as much for our side as conservative talk radio does. We need a place where people can hear the moonbats spewing BDS out over the airwaves.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

And the interesting thing is that depending on which scientist you're talking to, climate change skeptics are either not being listened to because they haven't presented any good countervailing arguments (that view comes from an Atmospheric chemist at the University of Chicago who collaborated on a new core-curriculum book for non-science majors at the U of C) or they're not being listened to because they are purported to be the intellectual equivalents of Lysenkoists. The latter view was expressed recently in Discover Magazine.

So the Skeptics have been officially cast as either criminals, incompetent hacks, lackeys of some evil corporation, or the capitalist incarnations of backward-minded, discredited Soviet cranks. It's pretty difficult to get a fair hearing when you have to deal with that kind of stigma.

I think it is very dangerous path indeed for people to associate anthropogenic climate-change skeptics with Intelligent Design proponents. The two are completely, utterly separate issues and totally different realms of science and a rigid firewall should be kept between them. If anything, it is the people on the Left who wish to discredit both who are lumping them together reflexively.

I swear the current scientific community is like the Church was when it persecuted Galileo for questioning their "established science".

Now this doesn't apply to everyone, but I have to agree that science often comes across as just as resistant to challenges to the establishement as any church.

I haven't read the Panda's and People book, so can't comment specifically on that book.

And even if there is a point counter point presentation, where a point that questions evolution is tole with a counterpoint that refutes that point, I would still much rather see that than what we do have.

In stating:

"...bedrock science, such as the Law of Entropy, things go from order to disorder, to the law of thermodynamics, that matter cannot be created or destroyed."

I presume you're referring to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which states that entropy, a mathematical quantity approximated in English with the word "disorder", increases in a closed system. The earth is most certainly not a closed system, as it receives vast amounts of energy input from the sun and moon and material input from falling debris, so this isn't relevant.

If the authors of the book in question insist on resorting to the timeworn chestnut of misinterpreting thermodynamics, then they have no place inflicting themselves on the nation's children.

"If evolution is true, it should be able to hold up to basic scientific analysis and scrutiny."

It does, abundantly so, except in the echo chamber of creationist writing. And if someone proposes another explanation for the development of life, rather than simply a critique of evolution, it should also be subject to trial and verification, including if that explanation is some form of scriptural literalism or divine intervention.

"What is the scientific community so scared of?"

Having their nation and its schools degraded by ill-informed or deceitful charlatans pursuing sectarian religious agendas cloaked as "science". For that matter, they're also dismayed at the idea of kids being taught about geocentrism, chakras, sasquatches, and ancient astronauts.

People professing evolution usually utilize the word badly. Evolution is a process by which succeeding generations inherit traits from their ancestors that were best able to reproduce. This does not say where life came from. It does not say this is the only way life changes. It does not rule out any other explanation.

I doubt you could find many people that would argue the inheritance of traits or that those that produce the most offspring will be more represented in the next generation.

What you will find is that the actual origin of life is uncertain and that the methods of how new traits can be introduced is up for grabs.

Its almost a mathematical tautology. Don't let the evolutionary religionists trap you with that. Yes Darwinian evolution is real and it has been observed to happen.

That does not mean it is the way life on earth happened. Or that it was the only process involved. This is their logical fallacy.

Rosie O'Donnell's hand would have turned into a fork.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

her back side into a couch.

Two thirds of the world is covered by water, the other third is covered by Champ Bailey

Which the human race considered as a whole seems to be enjoying.

Evolution is real but the word is badly abused.

Evolution explains: A means by which complex systems change over time

It is not the only means.
It doesn't explain the origin of the systems.
It does not rule out other means of change.

The evolutionists are generally as narrow minded and bigoted as they would like to portray the creationists. The trouble is they utilize a series of logical traps and fallacies to make anyone that disagrees look stupid.

The most common is to try and get their opponents to argue that evolution doesn't happen. Seeing as evolution and speciation have been observed this is very foolish tactically speaking.

As an engineer, I like the scientific method, but global warming theory is based on pure speculation. There are good weather-forecasting models out there that frequently diverge in their predictions four or five days in the future, and often don't predict what actually happens. I should know--I work in a consulting company with lots of meteorologists!

All the long-term climate models have built-in assumptions about very complex phenomena, and frequently ignore other real phenomena (for example, how many of them model CO2 exchange between oceans and air, which dwarfs human emissions of CO2 by burning fossil fuels?

To apply the scientific method to a climate model, one needs to input data from the recent past, and see if it predicts the current climate. If it predicts anything warmer than the current climate, its predictions for the future can't be trusted.

We do need to bring back the scientific method of verifying before we trust. The problem is, that takes brains, an open mind, and years of hard work and diligent study, adjusting one's conclusions to the data and not vice versa.

For an MSM journalist, why bother with that when it's so much easier to brainwash scientifically-illiterate people with spin to achieve one's agenda?

The bad news: Conservatism is hard to sell. The good news is that it works.

Steve - all of the major climate models do incorporate CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean. As you point out, at the moment this mechanism is having a tremendous stabilizing effect on the climate because of the capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2. One of the remaining uncertainties in climate science is the extent that the oceans can continue to perform this function, because if it ceased, atmospheric CO2 levels would rise by an order of magnitude faster than they already are.

Of course, the ocean's absorption of CO2 is not itself without consequences. Already, an acidification process (or, more accurately, de-alkanization process) is being observed, which may itself have effects on sea life. For more, see:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061120fa_fact3

..."uncertainty", for which I commend you. Not enough people is the GW community acknowledge it. It is anethema to Al Gore. And "uncertainty" is precisely the reason that so many of us are unwilling to advocate dismantling our economy as a preventative measure.

Mother Nature (whether by ID or by chance) came equipped with wonderful buffering mechanisms that work against imbalance in the system: too much CO2 encourages plant growth, which in turn stimulates oxygen production; uptake of CO2 by the ocean ultimately leads, not to an ocean of toxic acidic soup, but to carbonate deposition on the reefs and still shallow waters, making places like the Bahamas possible. Its really pretty neat how it all works.

Vladimir, I think you use my use of the word "uncertainty" to perform a rhetorical trick rather than in any scientifc sense. I don't think there is any uncertainty about the basic proposition that the climate is in the process of radical change as a result of CO2 emissions. What's uncertain is the rate and extent of the change. But even if the lower end of the likely range of outcomes is what ends up occurring, the effects on our civilization will be profound.

Your description of the balancing mechanisms that the earth has to protect itself is also basically correct, as far as it goes, but what you miss is the mounting evidence that those balancing mechanisms are in the process of being overwhelmed by a change that is many times faster than anything it has coped with before. Yes, the earth's systems can adjust, given time. But what is happening now is change over a period of decades that has previously only occurred over millenia.

As for "uncertainty" being a reason to do nothing, well, contrast that position with the Administration's position on terrorism: the famous "one percent doctrine". If we take the view that a one percent chance of a terrorist attack is enough for us to respond as if it were certain, why do we demand 100% certainty before we take any action on climate change?

It seems to me that a policy response to climate change is inevitable: the question for conservatives at this point is whether we influence the response in favor of market based mechanisms that maximize economic freedom (and will almost certainly be the most effective response) or whether we leave the entire debate to the left, and, by the way, doom ourselves to be the ones blamed for doing nothing while the situation slipped out of control.

BTW, I just got a mailing from John McCain that mentions dealing with global warming on the outside of the envelope to get me to open it. Someone's been listening...

Just one decade ago the consensus was that the loss of the rain forest was our biggest environmental calamity: just ask Al Gore.

Atmospheric and climatological systems are so complex that no one can possibly claim to understand all the interrelated parameters that affect global climate.

Just in the last six months I've seen reports in the press to the effect that SO2 (I think), considered a bad, bad, bad pollutant, actually helps reverse global warming when in the upper atmosphere. Some scientists want to intentionally seed it as a means of fighting global warming.

Another issue: it turns out that the chemicals used to fight the ozone hole (remember that calamity in the making?) actually contributed to global warming.

I'm not making this stuff up: the latter example is one in which the prescription for the calamity du jour actually exacerbated the next calamity coming down the pike.

And that's why I say that, regardless of how many scientists and how big their consensus, there is no way that they know if the remedy for global warming (which usually involves curtailment of economic activity, esp. in the U.S. of A.) is 1) effective, and 2) less damaging than the "disease" itself.

Removing particulate from exhaust... which is supposed to make GW worse. Don't hear too many GW believers talking about repealing some EPA regs as the first step, though.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Only wealthy exploiters of the proletariat masses can afford to have them. The only way they can gain the money is by stealing it from the worker. When the new soviet man is finally born all such things shall be on the ash heap of history.

;-) isn't it a shame that communism in particular was so much easier to defeat than stupidity in general ?

The Soviets left an environmental mess behind.

A properly functioning marketplace makes waste of resources a stupid thing for a capitalist.

One more thing that makes me instinctively distrust Big Government and collectivist "solutions" to environmental problems.

Theres a famous story of him trying to find the fewest drops of solder it would take to seal an drum. Whereas out in Siberia the communists couldn't be bothered to get the oil into railroad cars.

"Ecocide In The USSR"
2006 is done, 2008 is another day and another fight

Vladimir - I think there is actually a lot less uncertainty than you think. I think media coverage of science tends to encourage that perception because (a) they tend to give equal time to climate change skeptics in the name of balance, while in reality, the skeptics are a tiny minority of scientists, and (b) new papers in climate science are reported as they are announced, and they are always reported with little context as if they were a startling new development, as opposed to confirming a piece of the puzzle that climate scientists would have assumed anyway.

The examples you cite are cases in point. This sort of research is all about refining models by calculating ever more precisely the effects of various components that are already fundamentally understood. That includes the effects of various particulates that, because of their health effects are rightly considered pollutants in the lower atmosphere (ie the stuff we breathe), but also have the effect of reducing the amount of sunlight hitting the earth.

Obviously, a sensible policy is not to fill the air we breath with lung-disease causing smog in order to reduce the effects of global warming, but climate scientists still study the effect because it's part of the process of accurately modelling climate.

As for you last point, well, that goes to the heart of the point I was trying to make above. Yes, some of the proposed solutions to the problem involve curtailing economic activity, but the better ones don't: they use market forces and pricing mechanisms so that business reduce emissions through rational self-interest and the profit motive.

But the problem for free marketers at the moment is that so many of us have become knee-jerk denialists that we are ceding the debate and the right to advocate policy to people who don't have the same understanding of the value of free markets.

I refuse to believe that conservatism means that we need to pretend that facts are different to what they actually are because they don't suit our beliefs. Conservatism ought to be the philosophy of seeing things as they actually are.

No neither did I. But this was the result of neutrino flux models of the solar phoenix reaction.

OOPS

Glad we didn't do something silly like evacuate the solar system.

`

Following is a not-too-comprehensive list of calamities that were going to be the end of Life As We Know It, at least according to some in the scientific community. These have all happened during my lifetime. Some were, and continue to be, real concerns. In others, the scientists turned out to be wrong (even when in Consensus!). Some were pushed by folks with selfish commercial interests in the outcome (or remedy). Others were just pure hype.

The Population Bomb
Phosphate Detergents
DDT
Acid Rain
Benzene
Deforestation of the Rain Forest
PCB's
Saccharin, cyclamates, aspartame
The Hole in the Ozone
Loss of Diversity
Extinction of Endangered Species
Frogs with Five Limbs
Asbestos
Aerosols
Acid rain
Freon
Disruption of the Haline Cycle
AIDS
Famine
Y2K
Running out of oil

Seems conservative to me to be skeptical. My sense is that atmospheric and climatological science is still in its infancy, judging from the rate of learning new things about the complex processes and interactions in those systems.

BTW, are you a conservative, or are you a liberal lecturing me about what True Conservatism is? Just wondering...

Especially for this topic

Global Cooling and a renewed glacial period.

Vladimir - I agree that skepticism is an integral part of conservatism (though try telling that to some of our evangelical friends!)

But your list is not a very sensible basis for comparison with climate change in terms of either severity or the degree of scientific consensus (or the amount of scientific research underpinning it). You also include a number of problems where the scientific consensus was spot on, but the problem has receded in importance in recent years because of international governmental action, such as acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer.

Some of the other problems you cite are a little bizarre in this context: I don't think there has been much exaggeration about the impact of asbestos, and while there was a brief period of over-estimation about the ease of transmission of AIDS in the very early years, once that passed, it's behaved pretty much as scientists have predicted - including an impact in parts of Africa that is truly disastrous. It's also another case in point where some effective public education had a trememdous impact in stemming transmission.

So, yes, skepticism is an essential part of conservatism, but there is a point at which skepticism becomes wilfull blindness. Are you sure that you are open-minded enough to tell the difference?

If you go around assuming that every person who accepts the science is a liberal, I fear not.

...but experience has shown that new posters who show up on RedState lecturing as to the True Conservative Position on Issue X (be it abortion, illegal immigration, global warming, Darfur, the GWOT, or circumcision) turn out to be liberal trolls about 95% of the time.

I am not a Luddite. I remember when urban streams were sudsy cesspools, when Rust Belt cities had air so foul they were dying. I remember Iron Eyes Cody, the faux Indian, crying in his canoe. Phony as he was, he was right.

The EPA (and responsible industry) has cleaned things up. The country is a better place.

But you still have not addressed my central point, which is "How can we be sure that the cure is not worse than the disease?"

Asbestos is a perfect case in point: "I don't think there has been much exaggeration about the impact of asbestos..." God only knows how many $billions were spent in this country on asbestos remediation in public buildings, most of it totally unnecessary. That's not to say that there are not harmful forms of asbestos (there are), and that workers have not suffered disastrous health impacts of continued exposure (they have). But most asbestos insulation in place in offices and schools is extremely stable and is not the crystalline form of the mineral that causes lung problems.

Asbestos that is contained in a solid substance is harmless. But when it becomes crumbly, airborne and inhaled, it can lodge in body tissues, where it can sometimes cause cancer. Asbestos insulation to protect against fire was required in schools until 1973, when the Environmental Protection Agency banned its use to reduce children's exposure. The 1980's produced two Congressional acts requiring schools to inspect for asbestos hazards and clean them up. Despite the fact that in most schools asbestos levels were extremely low (less than the amount that in 10 years of exposure might cause one additional death in 100,000 over a lifetime -- one-third the risk of being struck by lightning), by 1990 some $6 billion had been spent on asbestos abatement in schools.

Many experts believe that asbestos removal, which increased airborne asbestos, created a far greater hazard to the children, who might have benefited far more had this money been spent on enhancing their education. [From junkscience.com]

Those of us in the marketplace understand that economic wastefulness has its cost, not only in reduced prosperity, but also in jobs, and ultimately health.

More on asbestos:
http://www.junkscience.com/news3/brody2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos

But you still have not addressed my central point, which is "How can we be sure that the cure is not worse than the disease?"

Well, you have to make decisions now on the information we have, which is that the most likely consequence of doing nothing is radical climate change that will have appalling consequences for all of us.

On the costs side, well, let me just say that I think it would be worth your while to take as skeptical a look at some of the claims of how much corrective action would take. History shows that the costs of major environmental legislation have been consistently been exaggerated, from auto emissions, sulphur dioxide emissions to the elimination of chloroflurocarbons (which, by the way, actually saved businesses money, because the alternatives turned out to be cheaper.

I believe in the power of free markets and the profit motive. There is an unfathomable genius in the power of markets to produce favorable outcomes when they are free from distortion. I have enormous faith that once carbon emissions are priced in accordance with their actual cost to the environment, there will be a brief adjustment period, followed by business as usual. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if it sparks of a boom as investment in new technology and new products explodes, the same way as techology investment played a huge role in the 1990s boom.

Well, you have to make decisions now on the information we have, which is that the most likely consequence of doing nothing is radical climate change that will have appalling consequences for all of us.

The most likely consequence of following any of the prescriptions to deal with climate change is also radical change but thats not the point.

We do have to make decisions on the information we have. What we know for certain is that the Kyoto protocol would have been vastly expensive and would not have addressed the problem. In less than a decade the Chinese will be dumping more CO2 into the atmosphere than we do. They are exempt under that treaty. No nation that has signed the treaty has been able to meet its targets

Please don't go into chlorofluorocarbons one of the greatest pieces of misdirection and fraud ever. Yes the alternatives were cheaper but not cheaper than fluorocarbons were about to become as their patents were expiring. Oops if people didn't have to switch a lot of people would be able to refrigerate without paying the patent holder their tax.

"I have enormous faith that once carbon emissions are priced in accordance with their actual cost to the environment, there will be a brief adjustment period, followed by business as usual."

Yikes!

Who sets the price schedule? Sounds like a job for ... Al Gore!

One man's "brief adjustment period" is the loss of 100,000 jobs, a full blown recession (or worse), or the relocation of entire industries overseas.

Gary, dude, you totally ignored the asbestos deal! All that work, down the drain! ...

Who sets the price schedule?

The Commissar of Harmless and Naturally Occurring Gases draws up a 5 year plan and decides how many carbon ration stamps to sell. It's the free market at work!
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Yes, some of the proposed solutions to the problem involve curtailing economic activity, but the better ones don't: they use market forces and pricing mechanisms so that business reduce emissions through rational self-interest and the profit motive.

That's a big relief. Now we can stop wasting time discussing the government-intervention and international-treaty nonsense. Let's sit back and let free markets do their thing.

...Big Government coercion is necessary to put those "market forces and pricing mechanisms" in place...

...Gary Brick would say it and show his bias.

I know you understand this perfectly, Vladimir, but I'll reiterate anyway: I've noticed that one thing common to GW devotees who don't want to look like morons is the idea that the free market can "fix the problem." I'm still waiting for one of these folks to tell us exactly how.

Hint: you have to precisely define the problem you're trying to solve. If the goal is to keep CO2 and CH4 out of the atmosphere, than start presenting your arguments to the Chinese and the Indians and stop presenting them here. If the goal is to wipe out market capitalism, go tell it the Kossacks. If the goal is to take the US down a peg or two, keep talking- you might get your wish.

If the goal really is to keep the earth from being a couple degrees warmer in 100 years or so, the most effective course of action may simply be to wait a few years till the scientists change their minds.

Now Algore's movie may not be 100% accurate but the film did receive almost universal kudos from climate scientists all over the world. There is little if any argument among scientists, at least those not working for the oil and coal industries, that human influenced global warming is a fact.

Universal kudos? Get real!

See The World In HinzSight!
Political HinzSight

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

Here is just one example: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060524-global-warming.ht...

Just because a Liberal supports an issue doesn't mean that we have to oppose it. Only by dealing in reality and supporting science over emotion can we be sure that the Left doesn't create policies that do much more harm than good. In my opinion, the Conservative approach to global warming should be this:

Yes, there is global warming and there is good evidence that human activity is at least one cause if not the main cause for the phenomenon. No, we are not going to unilaterally disarm and allow China, India and other polluters to continue polluting while we hamstring our economy with unfettered, feel-good restrictions on fossil fuels. There is a smart way to deal with the issue and we are not going to let the Liberals lead the way. We are going to show how the market, technology, and some government investment in alternative energy sources will help solve the problem.

Only fools who don't have grants believe in human caused global warming. Only complete fools would believe that if humans were causing it that humans could fix it.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

When you make such an eloquent and well researched statement like that, how could I possibly not take your side of the argument?

I know stupid when I see it. It's a gift. Pay attention and I will point out more of it for you. Hold still.

Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.

do you have a mouse in your pocket? You're no more a conservative than Jimmy Carter!

Yes, there is global warming and there is good evidence that human activity is at least one cause if not the main cause for the phenomenon.

Human activity might be the main cause? Get back on your meds. Go talk to the other loonies at Kos. You are so entirely uninformed, I am speechless!

See The World In HinzSight!
Political HinzSight

book? I honestly don't understand the resistance to the overwhelming evidence that shows that 1) global warming exists and 2) that human activity plays at least some part in that warming. I do understand and support the resistance to Liberal solutions to the problem.

KnownFacts™ over and over doesn't make them true, it just makes them tiresome!

See The World In HinzSight!
Political HinzSight

it's not my job to convince you of anything. I stated my case, and you disagree. Let's leave it at that.

There's hardly an article nowadays that does not have an alarmist tie to Global Warming.

The whole control carbon deal with CO2 issue is not about climate but about controlling economies.

If it wasn't why would the "Experts" be talking about proposals that would cost trillions of dollars to lower the temperature a tenth of a degree(Kyoto).

There are already alternate schemes out there to deal with the problem and their projected cost is in the billions per year. For example

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19484

Of course that quote warming trend seems to be having a problem at the moment.

Of course in some countries people are freezing to death. You think they might welcome a warmer climate ?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1933677,00.html

I would use the above add in 1991's data ignore the downtrend as aberrant and have a nice upward line passing between the 98 peak and the 2005 peak.

In fact, global warming is suspected of causing the Gulf Stream to weaken and that would actually cause colder temps for Northern Europe and the British Isles.

I believe, that you are dead-on about the economic agenda of the Left. They are using a legitimate scientific fact to push their agenda of governement control over the economy. Only by pursuing free market solutions to the problem can we both fight global warming and the Left's economic agenda.

The english used to have a winter carnival on the frozen Thames ?

This was the little ice age. It was not a good thing. The funny thing is that before the little Ice Age Greenland actually was green. When the Norse colonized it they did so for farming and got most of their food from crops and livestock. The Norsemen got frozen out

I don't worry much about AGW. I really worry about cooling.

Global warming that changes the salinity of the oceans, causes droughts in some parts of the world and another little ice age in Norther Europe and parts of the NE U.S. I am not certain that we can do enough to reverse the trends, but I do know that the prescription does not include crippling the US economy while allowing the Chinese and Indians to pollute with impunity.

NT

I think the free market will develop the best solutions. As oil gets more expensive, more economical and cleaner alternatives will pop up. Do you have any ideas, Joliphant? I would be interested in hearing market oriented solutions to the problem and not ceding this ground to the left.

than try to stop it.

The idea the world is static is a dangerous fallacy. If we are heating up due to CO2 there are relatively (compared to Kyoto) cheap ways that can be tried quickly to change things. If we are cooling down get ready to move south.

You want government to do something about it. That's not the free market at work and any solutions you decide to impose as Commissar of Harmless and Naturally Occurring Gases will not be "market oriented." The only reason you would need a plan to fight ManBearPig - err global warming at all, is if you plan to have government step in and do something.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Consider the only discrete event in recent history that unequivocally lowered global temperatures, the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo:

The effects of the eruption were felt worldwide. It injected large amounts of aerosols into the stratosphere—more than any eruption since that of Krakatoa in 1883. Over the following months, the aerosols formed a global layer of sulfuric acid haze. Global temperatures dropped by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F), and ozone destruction increased substantially.

Mr. Gore's glaciers actually advanced a bit rather than receded in 1991. Now perhaps it's not practical to install throttles on the world's volcanos, but the governments of the world do have a means at their disposal to increase atmospheric particulants and consequent cooling: nuclear weapons. A dustup, pun intended, between India and Pakistan would literally chill the earth, albeit at the cost of increased skin cancer rates (and a great many unfortunates within the blast radii).

See? A solution that government, and only government, is equipped to effect. QED!

`