[example1]

Originally Posted by a700hitter

I recently heard that there has been no warming trend in the last several years--- since 2000.

Here are how the candidates answered questions about their view on whether or not global warming concerns are overblown:

Edwards: It seems to me that every time we get more scientific information it indicates the problem is more severe, more serious than we though. So, no, I don't think it's being over-hyped.

Thompson: There are a lot of unanswered questions. We don't know to the extent this is a cyclical thing. This may or may not effect very much. The extremists are the ones who want to do drastic things to our economy before we have more answers as to how much good we can do and whether people in the other parts of the world are going to contribute.

Clinton: I don't think that it's over-hyped. I think we have time but we have to start acting now.

McCain: I have been to Greenland, I have been to the South Pole. I've been to the Arctic and I know it's real.

Obama: No, I think they're serious. I think we have to take significant steps now to deal with it. I've put forward a very substantial proposal to get 80 percent reductions in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Romney: I think the risks of climate change are real. And that you're seeing real climate change. And I think human activity is contributing to it.

Richardson: No, if anything they're underblown.

Rudy: There is global warming. Human beings are contributing to it. I think the best answer to it is energy independence.

Huckabee: I don't know. I mean, the honest answer for me, scientifically, is I don't know.

http://sierraclub.typepad.com/cleane...ening-new.html

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Most of the candidates know that it is a signficant problem and realize that the potential consequences of ignoring it are disasterous.

Here's the UN's report on global warming:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG...rstitialski p

Composed by scientists from 113 countries.

Here's an article about that report:

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/clim...c-report_x.htm

Here's one of Bush's top science advisors, the head of the Office of Science and Technology saying it is a significant problem:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6994760.stm

And Bush's Chair of the Wiite House Counsel of Environmental Quality, from the same article:

"You only have two choices; you either have advanced technologies and get them into the marketplace, or you shut down your economies and put people out of work," he said.

"I don't know of any politician that favours shutting down economies."

I'm not being reactionary, I'm being realistic, as are those above. They're right, we either shut down the economy and stop producing this shit, or we make a concerted effort and try to make our technology less harmful to the environment. Republicans have no financial gains from entering the discussion about global warming at this late date, and Democrats have been consistently made-fun-of for talking about it (the UN group focusing on global warming has been around since 1988, we are only now, in 2007, gaining widespread acceptance that it is a real problem).

We can argue all day whether or not we need China on board in order to reverse global warming. We cannot argue that global warming is real, it is strengthened by CO2 emissions, and the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the hotter it will get.