There is only one goddess Gaia and Al Gore is her only prophet...

[Jester]

They say, "Screw your freedom, you will do it our way."

Yes, that's quite right. If people have the freedom to generate negative externalities without cost, then they will generate too many of them. That's just basic economics. The only way to reduce those externalities is to somehow redirect their activities. You either curtail their freedom directly, or indirectly.

You regulate smoke stack emissions, since AIR is a public concern.

Where'd the freedom argument go? Isn't this exactly what I'm saying? You have to *regulate* these things (ie: reduce freedom) if you want the problem solved.

Live and let live.

Except for smokestacks?

Again, I don't have as much of an issue regulating emissions since its the public's air we breathe. The liberal perception is warped into thinking SUV's are bad, but vans and trucks (same chassis, engine, etc) are acceptable since they are utilitarian.

I don't think that's "warped". If you use a large vehicle because you have large loads to haul, and there is no more efficient way to haul those loads, then you're using energy efficiently. If you use a large vehicle because you really want to, for trips that could be performed in a vehicle of twice the fuel efficiency, then that's wasteful. Now, there is a calculus here about how often a vehicle is used and for what purpose, but the vast majority of Suburban SUV drivers could get by easily on a car half its size, and rent for the rare occasion when a gigantic vehicle is needed.

Everything you mention is covered by CAFE standards, and the Clean Air Act. Again, this is covered by existing environmental legislation. I would plug the loopholes, but essentially, between the CAA, and CAFE, 99% of air pollution is covered.

"Covered" in what sense? Obviously, these acts are not being used to meaningfully reduce CO2 pollution, because CO2 pollution is not going down. So, what exactly are these acts doing, relative to this crucial measure of pollution?

The CAP and TAX strategy is very, very different. It will drive many producers out of business, and end up pushing the increased costs (non-trivial as well, like 40% or higher) to the consumers.

If regulation doesn't stop people from doing the things you don't want them to, then it's not doing anything at all. That's the whole idea of regulation. Without raising the price on emitting carbon, people are not going to emit less carbon - unless you simply ban polluting activities outright, which is needlessly draconian.

In the end, if what we're trying to change is the *consumption* of emissions-producing fuel, then the only way to really do that is raise the cost to *consumers*, because they're the ones making the decisions to consume. How else, except for an outright ban, can you reduce emissions?

Then why all the rush? Let the EPA regulate CO2 emissions, and we can dial it down over the next 20 years.

The rush would be because, at the current rate of regulatory effectiveness, the CO2 problem will be solved approximately never. If existing legislation is supposedly adequate to deal with this problem, then why are CO2 emissions still increasing? The current *level* is not sustainable, let alone the *rate of growth*. Once the CO2 is in the atmosphere, it isn't coming out for hundreds or even a thousand years. The more we throw up now, the harder it will be to stabilize at any given level in the future - and the more money we sink into non-green industry and infrastructure now, the harder it will be to fix in the future.

Which predictions?James Hansen's 1988 predictions?

Obviously not, considering Hansen's landmark 1988 predictions are now way out of date. They don't look too shabby, considering the state of the science at the time, but they have since been superseded by much better studies. Any of the IPCC reports would give a much stronger picture of the current state of predictions. However, that link only gives Hansen's "worst case" scenario, without mentioning that he actually gave a range of predictions for different scenarios:

The observed temperatures are within the bounds of Hansen's original paper, although near the lower bound.

I subscribe to the Yin-Yang theory of environmentalism. Every negative thing done to the environment needs to be counter-balanced with an equal positive.

I absolutely don't subscribe to this. The environment is not karma. There is no God in the sky tallying up our rights and our wrongs, as if they balance out. Each type of pollution has distinct causes and effects, and the ecology of the earth responds in different ways. There may be some kinds of pollution that are unpleasant to live with, but not ultimately dangerous to our survival. CO2 is the opposite - it has almost no short-term negative effects, but in the long run, it could cause some very serious problems.

I don't think it is so much of missing them, as much as there are so many factors affecting temperature, that modeling the CO2 to temperature rates become a futile exercise in trying to force non-linear equations into a linear space.

It doesn't seem futile to me. But we shall see as time marches on.

I'm fine with accepting that CO2 has an affect on temperature, however I'm not convinced that it is the ONE factor I need to focus on to regulate Earth's temperature.

Of course it isn't. Methane is also important. Deforestation is a huge issue, as are other land use changes. But the largest forcing that's in our hands is CO2. We should work to fix all the pollution problems we can - Methane especially would be a good second target, and probably more cost efficient than carbon. Other factors may be relevant, or they may not be, but they're out of our control. We don't control the solar cycle, we don't control the vagarities of our orbit, etc, etc... So unless we get good science showing that these things completely overwhelm all signal from greenhouse gas emissions, I don't think it's wise to shrug this problem off.

-Jester