I admit to being a "can't we all get along" kind of guy. My other trait is to cut off the extreme opinions on any issue ( I also buy the medium price washing machine which is usually a better value than the most expensive or the cheapest).
This discussion has been pretty reasonable and a number of good points have been made (again cutting off the extremes).
In my opinion, SIKSUKR made the most important point. There is a fundamental distinction between those who believe global warming exists, meaning that the changes ARE occurring, and those who also believe that humans are the CAUSE of global warming.
And a lot of the comments do not address this so that we are comparing apples and oranges. Of course, if you do not believe that GW is occurring then ANY suggestion to modify it, by definition, has to be wrong. It is vital in considering different opinions to know whether the person believes it is occurring or not. An atheist really can have no valid opinion on whether the Mass should be in Latin or English or the "correctness" of the Sunni or Shia interpretation of Islam.
I do believe that the preponderance of evidence is that GW is real and the average temps are increasing worldwide. Just because we've had some cold winters, etc. in no way refutes the argument any more than the stock market going up for a bit means "happy days are here again." I am NOT so convinced that humans are the direct cause or of the prudence of some of the proposals.
The difficulty is to separate the best answer form the cr*p and there is a lot more of the latter. But you gotta keep trying.
Mixing up ones own political views, strong emotions, social views rarely leads to the correct answer to what is, in reality, a scientific question and this includes both Gore and the fanatics at either end.
Finally, even my position that the "middle" is always correct is not always true and is an "extreme" position itself. Sometimes those at the extremes are correct, just not usually for most of the issues we face as a society.
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