With the
release of a draft climate change/energy bill, by Congressmen Markey and and Waxman, the debate on this subject is about to "heat up," so to speak. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts from Tom Friedman's
"Hot, Flat and Crowded" (which I am finally reading):
The climate-change deniers come in three basic varieties: those paid by fossil fuel companies to deny that global warming is a serious human-caused problem; those scientists, a small minority, who have looked at the data and concluded for different reasons that the rapid and extensive increase in greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution is not a major threat to the planet's livability; and finally, those conservatives who simply refuse to accept the reality of climate change because they hate the solution - more government regulation and intervention.
I'd actually add one more category: Democrats from coal-producing areas who, instead of demonstrating leadership in moving beyond this dirty, dangerous 19th-century fuel, are hanging on for dear life to their political careers.
