We should use this as an opportunity.

Forget going backed to the gold standard for money, we should have all our money backed by pennies, with them being twice the cost of their face value, we'd double the value of everyone's money overnight!!!

Plugging in my car to charge vs. pumping gas isn't really a huge change to my lifestyle.

I'd just need a big change in my income to be able to afford an electric car.

My basic point was about technology changes. I never said I'd be unwilling to utilize newer technology. In fact I inferred that I would.

Did you just propose killing 6 billion people?

Sorry I'm willing to try almost ANY other option.

I didn't say it was going to be easy.

As far as Natural gas goes, it is at least better than oil.

Tar sands are more expensive than regular oil, too.

And you got a good point on coal.

But. There are other sides of this equation at play.

I would love to own an electric car. In fact if I owned an electric car I'd be in really good shape from a Carbon footprint perspective because more than half my electricity is supplied by hydro an wind. But they've got to get a whole lot cheaper.

If the next time I needed a new car I had a choice between a $20,000 gas car or a $20,000 electric car I would buy the electric one. Of course this means that the market for electric vehicles needs to expand, the materials cost for the cars needs to go down. Car companies need to put efforts there to improve the technology. When they do, then you can make the case that we should buy electric cars to "save the planet" and a lot of us will. Marketing is a valid aspect to use to get people to do things differently.

Another technological gauntlet out there is that we should switch from coal to nuclear. This is a harder economic sell, and is also the part where regulation _may_ have some impact (coal is dirty stuff and does require regulations, although I still think cap and trade is dumb). Nuclear is always zero emissions. If you are for government regulations to solve global warming and you don't want the government to fully back building nuclear plants, you are just and anti-global warming cheerleader and aren't willing to look at the hard choices.

Neither of these two technology aspects require much in the way of draconian government regulation, but could have big gains. More work needs to be done here. I'm really just saying that I favor research over regulation. And yes, I even favor gov't sponsored research. Government sponsored research doesn't restrict personal freedom beyond the taxes paid to support it. But if you try pass a law to hook a meter to the back of my house to ration my electricity use, yes I'm very much against that.

You better have some damn FUCKING GOOD PROOF of the bad outcomes to justify taking away ANY of anyones freedoms.

What happens when you get all the freedom constraining policies you want and it either

a. Doesn't fix the problem.
or
b. Has no affect.

The government will just say "oops, sorry" right.

We already have dire predictions from over 20 years ago that HAVE NOT HAPPENED.

All I am saying is that I think technology has the potential to save us from global warming and I think government regulation does not.

In fact I think new technology is the only solution to the global warming problem.

With all due respect, you are a tool.

Ah, but if you follow along with the AGW crowd and implement all the regulations and laws they require to "solve" global warming (which incidentally are exactly what one side of the political spectrum wants, but are anathema to the other side) then you must be a patriot right?

I've come to realize recently that I really agree with most of the arguments of AGW.

But

I think they are wildly optimistic at how effective their regulations will be at changing the situation and are oblivious to the fact that regulations with enough impact to make a change will have severely adverse consequences of the economy and personal freedom.

Recently, it was posited on line that it was more likely that the free market and the decreasing supply of fossil fuels (leading to cost increases) will naturally spur on innovations that achieve the goals many environmentalists have, but that many laws proposed have serious negative and draconian impacts on the economy and the people.

An opportune question is, if you're paying people to not emit CO2, then how do you effectively stop rampant corruption in the market from people who say that they'll generate less CO2, but just want you to pay them money to do nothing? Cap and Trade is a false market that is incapable of avoiding both fraud and regulatory capture.

Someone needs to develop energy solutions that can replace fossil fuels that deliver the same amount of energy for nearly the same cost. That's where the bar is. If you can do that you'll end up rich and will save the planet, if you can't, taxing people for CO2 emissions isn't going to make it happen.

And before anyone brings it up, yes, subsidies for the fossil fuel industry have to go to keep the marketplace fair and encourage development of new technology.

Alternate energy technology is our only hope. I'm sorry, governmental worldwide restrictions and regulations are too dangerous and too prone to misuse.

You know, I might actually pay good money to see skate-boxing....

It would be nice to see an investigative journalism piece where they wear a dosimeter through the scanner and measure the actual dose.

But for some reason, I think anyone trying that would probably get their dosimeter taken by the TSA and likely end up on the watch list.

Patent trolls don't make a first copy. They sketch out a vague diagram and then say that anyone doom what they diagramed needs to pay.

I would love to see software patent suits require a demo of functioning software. But I have a suspicion that that woul make it too easy for juries to say "these aren't the same things."

Heck if I had my way anyone entering a courtroom for a software parent suit without being able to present a working software example of their parent should be shot.

I know you're joking, but your post hits on a point.

The internet was created and thrived as a free and open environment. That the jury could see this lawsuit as a threat to that is commendable.

Now the next thing that needs to be explained is how something set up by congress to "Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," is currently being wielded as a weapon of technological mass destruction.

It is obvious to anyone paying any attention at all that software patents are evil and do not promote progress in any way.