Submitted by Peter, Feb 7, 2007 19:52

So, lets take the report's conclusions that global warming is real and man-made at face value. Most people will end their reading there, and simply assume that if we had something to do with something, the result is necessarily bad, and we must necessarily bend over backward to "do something," effective or not. Countless examples exist throughout history. How about, for a change, we have a dialogue about the net positives and negatives of this warming trend? How about we try to figure out whether action at this time will change any of the predictions, before we start imposing restrictions that will cost billions, affect lives, and possibly accomplish nothing? Alarmist exaggerations have one goal: to scare people on the fence into accepting the exaggerators' side of things without benefit of rational debate. It's these sorts of exaggerations that stopped the progress of nuclear power in this country in its tracks. If we had continued to build reactors, we'd be dumping far less carbon into the atmosphere. Want to do something? Promote rational discussion. Convinced we need to cut carbon? Advocate nuclear energy. There really isn't a down side.

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