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Originally Posted by non sequitur
What bothers me most about the debate is the way it has become politicized. I'm not a scientist, and I don't pretend to know the extent of global warming or the long term effects of global warming, but what I do know is that this should not be a liberal/conservative issue. It should be a human issue. So when I hear partisan political hacks hold forth on global warming or the non-existence thereof, I tend to discount their rhetoric and move on to others who don't have a political axe to grind. The stakes are much too high for this to be reduced to petty political Sniping.
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Well said. Sadly, as IPU notes, so many things are so polarized and politicized that it is hard to find objective sources of information.
Gore is an interesting case study. I have no doubt he is sincere in his views on addressing perceived environmental problems. But at the same time, he is surely politically savvy enough to realize that anything more than minor steps will be politically untenable due to the negative affects on the economy and disruption in people's lives. I was at Kyoto as Gore came in pushing the Clinton Administration's aggressive agenda to reach an agreement. At the same time, he and his representatives were being told by Democrat congressmen and senators from industrial, blue collar districts and states who where in Kyoto that the thing was dead in the water as far as ratification. It all comes off as a political game to shore up support on the "green" side of the party while not alienating labor.
Frankly, I think the environmental movement has given up on people my age. Their target is much younger where they appear to have fully assimilated primary school educators. My children are fully environmentally Borg, at least in their understanding. Whether or not that translates into practice, I don't know.