One of the larger problems we face is the inability to see simple connections regarding issues. This is not a problem that is unique to you; much of its current incarnation is based on how news outlets and politicians parse issues for easy digestion, and to sell the public on the idea that things are moving forward (whatever that means).

The simple reality is that of course our foreign policy along with, all modern, Western foreign policy in the Middle East, is completely based on securing a reliable supply of oil. It is true that the US produces a lot of oil, but it also imports more than three times as much as it produces.

In this very real way, oil to the US is not just an environmental or micro economic problem it is also a huge security issue as well. The simple truth is that if the US spent nearly as much money on researching alternative fuels as it does on military hardware, the result would be pretty much the same: a relatively secure US — a payoff, however, would be fewer American amputees and fewer dead brown people. Sounds like a better world to me.

Moy dorogoy Dave, pri vsem moem uvagenii k velikolepnoy fraze “epistemic hygiene,” although I would personally refer to it as “fallibist hygiene,” I must say that I hesitated to use the quotes from the petroleum geologists precisely because I expected the question of their credibility to surface at some point. Of course, you and I very well know that we could not make a statement as to where their salaries come from simply based on the name of their profession. They are a scientific international organization based in London with almost one hundred and forty thousand members after all. But forget the poor geologists with dirtied reputations, whose statements we mistrust either way; The American Association of State Climatologists, pretty neutral guys, state that it is scientifically impossible to model climate, specifically, global disasters of grotesque proportions. Furthermore, The United Nations Scientific Panel, The American Ocean Panel, as well as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the three biggest advocates of the green movement, in their overviews of the global warming issue, all say that human industrialism is “likely” one of the reasons of global warming. Such approach is understandable; the theory of Global Warming is still a theory after all. Alas, I still recycle and buy biodegradable products, but in the name of the present problems like plastic bags and chemicals in our oceans. Don’t get me wrong, I stand for what’s best for the humankind but favor methodic research, international consensus, united approach, and real solutions over a green religion which is supposed to disentangle the nut by pulling in so many unsystematic directions. I can’t accept a possible notion that a high school kid makes a GW video, uses some simple math, a table, a pinch of erudite illusion and all of my adult and educated friends forward it to me with a note “Wow! You must see it, I am going green!”

I read GW, at first, as “Great Whatsit.” Ha! Everyone knows we’re divinely ordained.

Though I agree to a point with this statement, (as all science in the US is funded by potentially politically and/or economically backed interests) it’s my understanding, that generally speaking, more of the (less-directly politically dependent) scientific community seems to fall on the side of GW as having a human cause.

As someone who is generally more skeptical regarding corporations than quasi-independent scientists, my default is to always follow the money. However, if you are privy to information that I’m not, I’d like to know it.