Last winter was our coldest and snowiest in a LONG time here in Denver. We nearly broke the record for consecutive days with snow on the ground and our average temperature was well below normal. If this is global warming, then I'd like to go back to when it wasn't so warm. We never got near the record high for Denver this year, (105 degrees is as hot as it's ever gotten,) and while we did have a lot of 90+ days, we still haven't broken that record this year either.

Thing is, I'm not going to live long enough to see any "effects" or ever know if it was caused by man's involvement with the environment, or if it's just the grand universal cycle our planet exists under. I am hoping I'll be around for the magnetic field shift though. That should be cool. All our magnetic compasses will be pointing south, instead of north.

From what I've seen in terms of heat records, the earth is warming. Whether or not humans are the cause is up for debate. Personally I think it's cyclical, it's a natural process that the earth goes through. I remember reading once about fruit trees and vegetation found in Antarctica which would imply that it was once tropical there. So I think warming AND cooling of the earth is natural.

However we need to keep our home clean. We ravage this planet for ridiculous purposes, it's asinine. We tear down rain forests to plant soy bean fields to feed cattle to make burgers. Many new products and industries can come about with a legitimate Green movement, it can only lead to good.

Xark - The pole shift theory is pretty interesting. Also kind of scary. I know there are two versions of a shift, one is electromagnetic (not so bad) and one is physical (the earths crust literally slips around the core), this one would be pretty hairy I think. There's been lots of talk about this lately it seems all over the web and in books, people relate it to the Mayan Calendar and all that jazz. Of course nobody knows anything for sure but it's fun to speculate!

I thoroughly agree. There have been climate change on earth long before humans appeared, and the climate continued to change long before the industrial revolution. So, why all of a sudden, the global process that has always taken place for millions of years is suddenly the fault of humans in the last 50 years, which in global terms is a drop in the bucket?

But I also do agree, we need to be good stewards of this planet. We definately need to take good care of this environment we liive in. Politics should never be a part of this debate. Taking good care of the environment is just plain good sense. But all the hype clouds the common sense.

I believe that there is such a thing as Global Warming and that it will be a bigger problem for future generations than terrorism. I applaud people like Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, et al for warning us about this problem.

And I don't think Al Gore is just doing it for the money.

Sure, it's something the tree-huggers can grab onto. Not that I'm disagreeing here, but we're not going to change the earth in a few years time. I would take hundreds of years to determine if what we're doing has any effect at all. Like DC says, it's a drop in the bucket in terms of how long these cycles take to complete.

Colorado is the worst state in the union for recycling. We have too much open land and it's just cheaper to bury our trash than to recycle. (No deposits on glass or aluminum. No mandatory trash separation for paper, plastic, cardboard, etc.) I also only pay $10 a month for trash removal, so it's damned cheap too!

I do recycle my bio material and compost everything my yard sheds. Grass, tree limbs and leaves, stuff that most people throw down the garbage disposal, the bio mass from my vegetable garden, (60'x60',) and anything else that will break down nicely. This all gets added back into my yard.

So I do what I can. The rest is up to someone else. I have to drive and as long as cars need gasoline, we don't have a choice. (Can't wait to see if they can get hydrogen off the ground.) I've replaced all my incadescent lighting with flourescents, though I would prefer LEDs, they're just not cheap enough yet. The unfortunate part of all this is we're dependant on what big business wants. The oil companies resisting ethanol and hydrogen. The lighting companies haven't gotten their profits from flourescents yet so LEDs will lag behind for a few more years, (they're using them in theater now because the light is purer than incadescent and it's instant on/off, whereas the old incadescents leave an "afterglow" when turned off, making a lightening effect in the theaters appears more realistic because LEDs don't have that cool down time. They also use a LOT less power and emit a lot less heat than flourescents.

Anyway, we can only choose from what we're offered and as long as there's stuff someone can make money from, what it will eventually do to our planet isn't considered until it's too late.

In response to Peck,

There's a tremendous amount of misunderstanding and flat-out untrue statements regarding oil and who makes the money and how.

I will try to be brief to explain how it works.

Oil is a commodity, and it's price is set on the commodities market. And if you know anything about the commodities market, commodity prices fluctuates by speculation, supply and demand, and news events. Anyone remember the Eddie Murphy/Dan Ackeroid movie Trading Places? Recall how the price of oranges adjusted based on the Ag secretary's briefing?

Now, back to oil. OPEC nations don't set the price, nor do oil companies set the price, contrary to the volume of accusations by politicians and activists. There are only 2 entities that actually set the price of oil. The traders on the commodities market, and governments through taxation. Now, the OPEC nations can influence how the price gets set as well as the consumers of the product can affect the price. The law of supply and demand applies here. If OPEC pumps alot of oil, then there's a surplus of oil on the market and the price goes down. If OPEC pumps less, the opposite will take place. Regarding consumers, traders will observe consumer trends and trade at a higher or lower strike price based on the expected consumer trends. Knowing summer driving trends that go up, oil always rises in price over the summer. Now, it makes no sense for a seller to over charge, because the buyers on the market will just buy from another seller, so there's a balance that must take place so successful trades take place. Everyone wants to make money for himself, and there's strict FTC oversights taking place to maintain the integrity of the market.

Now, regarding world events, if Admajidad starts making threats again, the traders take that as a risk of oil being delivered, and as a result, the price spikes up until trader fears settle down. Now regarding the oil companies profits. They take a percentage of the oil they service. If a higher volume of oil is being delivered and sold at the gas stations, then the oil companies make more money, it's simple math. So when some politician gets in front of a news camera and starts attacking oil companies, they're not explaining that's because volume has gone up, therefore more money is made. So, consumers of that news event become misinformed and end up drawing untrue conclusions.

Also, we never really think about it but next time you pump gas, look for the label that show just how much money the government is taxing each gallon of gas being pumped. That's a big reason why gas prices vary from state to state. Some states tax more than others.

...and another thought. The global demand for oil has permanently gone up. China and India have, in the last 5-10 years become larger consumers of oil products, especially China. The global deman as, it appears, permanently gone up, so prices will most likely not go back to what we enjoyed 5 years ago. Those days are gone forever, it appears.

peck, you were the one who brought up the notion of profits and following the money, now you're changing the subject?

and it's in bad form to begin insulting me when you don't know who i am and what my expierences are.

What a pungent thread. Lots of ideas and personalities. I am not a religious person, despite my upbringing, but I remain spiritual in each word and deed. That being said, there is an interesting quote that has influenced my thoughts on global warming and the encompassing political motivations and it's this, "you can't show glory to god by heaping contempt upon his creation." As people get older and they experience more, they too often become cold and their intentions shift from being benign to harsh.

In our eighty to a hundred years on this planet, we may see the beginnings of new cycles of life, ice ages or thaws, plagues and triumphs, but in the end we are guests on a greater living being. As we evolve we're definitively more parasitic than gracious to our host.