The conversation eventually came around to globalization and the spread of American consumerism to every corner of the globe (currently we are in Ireland and have been disgusted to see suburban spec homes filling up farmers fields. Ah, Americas contribution to Irish culture.)

I think maybe i’d be a little less vehement about Americas lifestyle if Americas way of living was contained within its borders. But it isnt. The insane way of living that you see in most of America is being replicated in country after country, village after village, around the globe.

It’s not only about Americans going green and changing the way they live, it’s about the global community assessing whether or not it should be participating in the insanity that encompasses the consumerist capitalist way of life.

Thanks for this post Josh. Good stuff.

I wouldn’t describe declaring the debate as “over,” and those who are skeptical as being in denial, as being even-handed. Whenever political or religious power is used to silence dissent, be wary.

And Lindzen is more opposed to Al Gore than you might like to characterize him, based on quotes from the article I linked to:

There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we’ve seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe. What most commentators—and many scientists—seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes… The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman’s forecast for next week.

Many of the most alarming studies rely on long-range predictions using inherently untrustworthy climate models, similar to those that cannot accurately forecast the weather a week from now. Interpretations of these studies rarely consider that the impact of carbon on temperature goes down—not up—the more carbon accumulates in the atmosphere. Even if emissions were the sole cause of the recent temperature rise—a dubious proposition—future increases wouldn’t be as steep as the climb in emissions.

And the report you quoted? Lindzen has criticized it. Read Lindzen’s article, he points out many important discrepancies that are worth being aware of.

And your characterizations of Tim Ball and Senator Inhofe is typical – if someone is connected, in any way, with any oil company, than anything they say must be dismissed. Forget the reasoning, forget any scientific debate (because, of course, it’s “over”). If anyone disagrees, they must be paid by an oil-company or some kind of religious nut. The pattern is tiresome. Instead of attempting character assassination, how about responding to what they’re saying?