Mr. Soul,

Always a fan of George Carlin, although never saw the skit on saving the planet. Believe it or not, that is my exact philosophy on the subject (world's fine, it's the people that will perish and be replaced by a new and possibly superior "dominant" species), and has been for years, and I believe I've posted it over the years, going back to SH and the ELH days. So got quite a kick out of Carlin spewing it so eloquently and humorously. Disclosure - my wife and I have no children, so we don't have to worry about our descendants eventually paying the piper.

Having said that, let me share a philosophy on global warming by analogizing it to something a whole lot smaller in scope - gun control. So many pros, so many cons, such strong feelings on boths sides. My feeling is we ban guns in the US for a period of time, maybe 10 to 20 years, and study what occurs during that period. At that point, people can maybe be in a better position to make a decision that's a little more lasting (constitutional amendment, if need be). I mean, what's 10 years or so to society, hardly anything.

With global warming, it's always hard to know what exactly is right and who is being straight and who has an agenda of greed and power - most humans who would be political, social or economic leaders may just be subject to one or both of those traits. Those are the people, for the most part, that bring you global warming and its dangers and its solutions. And it might take years to determine whether the various things done to "control" it have worked or not, the debate could rage far beyond decades. How can we tell if whatever changes came about were as the result of our efforts or just the earth changing as it has since time immemorial.

I think we give it a shot, and we leave it to scientists of all current slants, and we leave it to them to come up with ways (for all I know, they already have) to precisely measure the impact of efforts to combat global warming.