Throughout history we have needed to find things to rally around in order to suppress the rights of the individual. War was the first solution for stately power grabs, but now we have found the moral equivalent of war to excuse collectivistic infringements on the rights of the individual. We can now stop people from driving the sort of car they want, from living where they choose, and from using products that they enjoy.

And that, my fellow liberals, is something to be proud of.

I enjoyed the picture by the way.

We should work on solving the problems that we know are problems whether they're going to destroy the planet in 30 years or not.
We know that air pollution is unhealthy and destructive, so we should fix it whether it's melting glaciers or not.
We know that fowling the oceans is unhealthy and destructive, so we should stop polluting our waters and work to clean them up.
We know that we have too much trash for landfills to handle safely and rather than saving it until someone figures out a way to shoot it into deepest space, we should recycle and stop creating so much trash.

People who argue for doing nothing until ALL the facts are in have just found a pseudo-legitimate way to convince like-minded people to excuse their inaction. We know when we've made a mess.

"We know that we have too much trash for landfills to handle safely." Yes, I don't think this has been disproven a thousand times since the 1980's.

didnt know the Ren-faire types really cared that much

We do need to work more on solving the problems already in front of us, rather than "waiting for all the facts to come in," but that doesn't excuse us from continuing to do research and collect information on things that may become problems in the future. It's one part problem solving, and one part preparation.

With that being said, I feel like we have a drought in Cali every damn year. All I ever hear on the radio during the summer is "turn in your neighbors if they water the lawn too much," along with "save energy PLEASE!" ads.

"We know that we have too much trash for landfills to handle safely." Yes, I don't think this has been disproven a thousand times since the 1980's."
Yes, I don't think so either - definitely not credibly.

Being green has absolutely become the latest zealot religion.

We can still look into determining what the facts are behind climate change, but we need to be actively trying to do our parts to conserve at the same time.

I doesn't have to be one or the other.

I agree, haus. I think some of the fanatics actually do their cause a great disservice by basically being environmental terrorists. It's sad, really.

Those kinds of tactics always tend to devalue a cause.

By the way, that chick in the picture is truly heinous. Is her hair that color because she literally just crawled out of the ocean?

Looks like she's used too much Ye Olde Sun In....

I don't know why these people expect to be taken serious when they dress like that.

Who knows if she meant to be taken seriously - it's not as if it's a picture from a convention of scientists. We could ask why someone chose that picture to go with this story. She doesn't look particularly religious or green.

I think it's incredibly rude that no one is even considering the fact that she MIGHT be a climatologist.

I think its time to stop bickering back & forth and acctually DO something about the problem.

Who are "these people"? And ditto Organicsugr!

I LOVE the picture.

Oh and you'll always be cab to me.

haha hf! you'll get used to it... but right after i changed it i was like, shoot! i hope no one ever calls me HF, I don't want to step on her toes!

I think that's my new favorite emoticon, HF (the original).

luckily most have taken to calling me haus, which has made me feel kind of large. but thats ok.

I think Sammy Wilson is my new favorite Brit

That's my favorite one too liberty. LOL

What's behind the change? Are you in a witness protection program?

cause shes a hause....frau
shes mighty mighty just letting it all hang out.

That picture just gave me flashbacks to a client who came into our office a few days ago, except ours had long curly, Kool Aid red hair and reminded everyone of the Little Mermaid.

As for greenness, I don't think it matters if global warming is real or not. There are so, so, so, so many other reasons to clean up our acts. And if you act like a crazy person no one will take you seriously, so going nuts over it doesn't do anything to help your cause.

well i think that we all need to realize that instead of ONLY acknowledging that there's a problem, we have to really find new solutions that can change the direction that we're going in. the interesting thing to me is that in this world there are some of the most intelligent people who've solved smaller easier issues, yet we're not all pooling our minds and resources together on this to figure out what to do.

i think that the Cali solution is kind of innovative and i'm not sure if it's the way to go - but it's a solution. i think that they are leading a movement to find new ways to be proactive and try to avoid major issues that come upon us in the future. they are thinking ahead to realize that the waste that we have now in not saving or conserving water will result in a worse draught, and they are preparing. it may cost more, but that's a lesson that we'll learn in year one and perhaps in 2010, the same draught issues won't be as abundant.

"Resources should be used to adapt to the consequences of climate change, rather than King Canute-style vainly trying to stop it. "
Since we can't seem to prove that GCC is human caused, this is a better usage of resources.