[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Xantar

Err...wait a second. Are you saying that capitalism is already correcting for global warming because higher oil prices are pushing us to greener energy? Because the connections don't quite flow through in that logic.

Tell that to the car companies who use their hybrid's MPG as the main marketing tool and conveniently never mention the increased maintenance cost. Whether or not its more economical is irrelevant. People are buying those cars because they think its more economical and the superior feeling of "doing the right thing" is just an added bonus along with fear of the middle east. People vote and purchase with their wallets, not their good intentions. And in the end, its better for the environment.

It's safe to say that if it hadn't been for activists and campaigners who made carbon pollution a mainstream topic of debate, hybrid cars would still sell but not nearly as well as they have.

Actually, its not safe to say that. At all. Green cars (remember the electric car?) and alternative fuel strategies have been around for DECADES, as have these wonderful activists, and now during this oil crisis is the time when everyone grows a ecological conscience. The bottom line is people are feeling the pinch in their wallet and the violence in the middle east and they think they can alleviate both by going hybrid. And honestly, car pollution is a scientific joke when it comes to polltution and global warming as car exhaust contributes to a minute % of greenhouse gasses. Industry, and not even AMERICAN industry, are the big culprits. We can regulate all we want while China and Eastern Europe pump out black smoke by the cubic meter, and it won't mean a damn thing.

[quoteAlso, regulation doesn't always have to mean banning certain fuels or mandating certain technologies.[/quote]

Not if you listen to Gore and some of the public tatements he's made. I agree government regulation isn;t always bad, but to the point that HE wants to stretch it IS.

I could get into all your comparisons between environmentalists and the far right, Michael Moore and Al Gore and so on, but I realized that those are red herring issues which don't have much to do with the topic at hand.

They have more to do with how the left shoots themselves in the foot with outrageous comparisons and statements that have more to do with fantasy than fact. My point int mentioning this is that they kill their own VALID argument by exagerrating it. In that, it is perfectly on topic and I don't think I was trying to create a red-herring at all as the two topics are related and have everything to do with politics.

I could delve into how Steven Milloy (writer of JunkScience.com) is documented to be a paid advocate of ExxonMobil and Philip Morris and that his website has attempted to debunk evolution and the purported ill effects of smoking.

Oh could you delve into it? My my, thank you for taking the HIGH ROAD by NOT delving into it... oh wait... you just did (talk about passive-agressive). I quoted the author because the science was valid. There were a whole lot of articles that weren't, so I didnlt meantion them. Any comment about the professor from MIT I quoted, and how he is a stooge for Karl Rove and Big Oil? Or does he touch puppies in naughty places?

You do a wonderful job of saying a whole lot without ever taking credit for saying anything at all.