travelinman67 wrote:...and some really funny stuff analogizing the "Gore Method" to a Pascal Wager...
IMO, your quoting the “Peoples Cube Global Warming Wager” asks two essential questions:
1) Is the earth’s climate changing?
2) Should the U.S. do anything about the impact of mankind on climate and the environment?
Looking at the opposite answers to each you end up with the following extreme situations:
A) Yes & No – if the climate change is drastic enough means the end of civilization as we know it.
B) No & Yes – we spend a lot of time, effort & dollars to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
Granted these two situations are the extreme but given a choice I would prefer option B to option A (and I'm a capitalist).
Another important question is -
Why should responding to global warming or more accurately, mankind's impact on the environment mean the end of capitalism?
Done properly, a response could spur capitalism and innovation. Rather than giving tax breaks to the Big 3 automakers to produce hybrids and other half-a$$ed measures to reduce auto emissions why not give tax breaks to companies that put time & $ into R&D trying to come up with an eco-friendly replacement for the internal combustion engine? The Danes are producing wind power technology and selling it around the world, if Americans put their ability to think outside of the box and solve problems we should be able to come up with alternative energy solutions that are better on a revolutionary not evolutionary scale and sell those solutions around the world for a profit. Shifting toward sustainability isn’t just a threat to the stodgy old companies that don’t want to change it’s an opportunity for those that are flexible and willing to embrace change. Americans are some of the most innovative people on the planet, we should be pursuing this opportunity rather than ceding leadership to others!
(although the whole carbon credit/green tag thing is a huge scam so I do have a problem with that) 
