I just watched a new video on climate change (NOVA) and was impressed by how much has been discovered in the last few years. Most of the questions posed by critics have been answered and we are now almost certain the changes are caused by people. In the video i detected a shift by the corporate critics toward the position "Global warming is good". They are starting to give up on the arguments that it isn't real or caused by people. A few climate scientists still claim the changes are possibly natural events and point at a belief that Greenland was once warm when the vikings landed. This line of argument was refuted by a series of experiments to determine the average global temperature going back a thousand years. For some reason the critics refuse to admit they were wrong. What puzzles me is why the handful of critics are given so much attention. The vast majority have been convinced for 10 or more years. The only negative i found in the video was when they talked about cutting back on fossil fuels. I could tell there was little understanding of how this would be possible. One got the feeling that cutting back would destroy the world as we know it and be painful. At the end you were left with this big problem and very little hope. It was a world of competing nations and people who will not give up their SUV's or energy wasting habits. So.. we turned off the video machine and went back to living comfortably on small amounts of energy. Maybe in a few years the world will build a positive vision including conservation, less development, and renewable energy. Until, then i'm not going to live with inactivity and feelings of frustration. jeff (busy setting up thermometers in two greenhouses)
