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Originally Posted by jkellmd
a. Pressure from big business to keep costs low, and to keep energy profits high.
b. Cost of alternative energies, which are not researched due to (a).
c. Greed of the average human who feels the need to drive alone to work, and have his precious family ride ten feet of the road in a tank. In this way, the greedy and least thoughtful live the longest, creating yet another negative selection force on the species.
d. Laziness.
e. Fear of admitting that the government has been wrong about global warming for at least the last fifteen years. Do they share science advisors with Phillip Morris?
f. So we can grow pineapples in Alaska (from King of the Hill).
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JKELLMD is correct in his/her noting of the above. But we have finally observed a "concensus" by all the leading nations that global warming is REAL.
The frustration is apparent upon examination of the slow pace of R&D into these new technologies, but I am encouraged. Clearly, the higher costs of crude and instability in the Middle East, have served to accelerate prospects. More recently, 60 Minutes (Feb. 26, 2006) aired a segment on the Montanna governor plans to do open mining of "coal fields" that would produce high grade diesel fuel - w/ the main downside of increased CO2 from this newer production method. Similarly, there have been numerous programs on vegetable oil mix in diesel fuel. I think this is the most clever! It takes used cooking oils from McDonalds and numerous restaurants and burns it with much less exhause pollutants, and solves the disposal ISSUE of used cooking oils! Yes, we've got a ways to go. But we have reason for encouragement. though not matter what steps we take - the Earth's warming would still continue as a result of the now-dimished ozone protective layer.
