John Stossel is a well know Libertarian, so he is looking at the global warming issue with his own political issues just like everyone else is.
Exactly, just like everyone else. Al Gore is a Democrat. Is it surprising he's championing a global tax and cap & trade system to stop "global warming"? Every liberal/progressive in the world says global warming is real and man-made. Every conservative or libertarian in the world is sceptical and say even if global warming is real it may not be man-made. Showing that more than anything, global warming is a political issue, not a scientific one.
It's true John Stossel is a libertarian. But it's interesting to note that he was a liberal/progressive until he become a real consumer reporter and started investigating issues that effect everyday people and consumers. After doing the research he found out that the private sector does more for us that we give it credit for and the free market is a thing of beauty that only fails when influenced or manipulated by government.
It is a fact that some of the actions of man are having some impact on the Earth. How little the impact is is not the issue. If we don't stop whatever it is we are doing, then the impact will be major.
That's exactly the issue. Because if no matter how hard we try we have such an insignificant effect on global warming that we wont make a difference, then why stifle our economic growth and standard of living?
I can not understand for the life of me how some people (when if comes to energy for example), can't see how using the Wind and Sun for energy is far better than using Coal and Oil for energy. How using electricity to run cars is much better than using gasoline. It's all about money money money and that is where the disagreements about what global warming is doing to the Earth is stemming from.
In some ways wind and solar are better. They are more energy-efficient, more self-sufficient. But in the case of solar, most everyday people think it will be too expensive for them. And people running on solar people do have trouble in colder months when there's not as much sunlight and have to have reserve electrical power. But I don't know how it is in America. But I'd assume like Australia solar panels are being sold already and anyone can install solar power in their house. If that's the case, why don't people just make the switch instead of whining about how we use too much power?
As for the electric car, well just search for "electric car red tape" or "electric car bureaucracy" or something like that and you'll see a bunch of article about how people and companies have tried before to get electric cars on the road, but can't get the government permission to do it. There are so many things in the way like safety standards and fuel efficiency standards. Plus, the major car companies work in a big way with the government to keep these things from being mass produced and sold to the general public.
It's a great myth that big corporations love the free market and campaign for less government regulation and intervention. Big car companies work with government to regulate the industry so that every small business selling cars has to grow throw a major dealer, you can't sell cars on the internet without going through a major dealer etc. They hate the free market. They couldn't survive if everyone had the opportunity to make cars, sell cars. We'd have an electric car by now if we lived in a free market place.
People who are making money off of DRILLING, BURNING, PUMPING, CHOPPING, things don't see the Earth is being harmed. We may not see all of the impact in our lifetime, but the future generations are going to pay for it.
The way I see it, because of drilling, burning, pumping and chopping, future generations will have a better quality of life than we do. Just like we have a better quality of life than our parents or grandparents did. That's if the government doesn't introduce heavy global taxes, heavy environmental regulations etc. and stifle economic growth so that the quality of living goes down. The only way future generations will be worse of than us is because they'll have to live with a debt we created. They'll have to sacrifice many things to pay off that debt. But we can actually start reversing that now. This is something we know is happening, we know is man-made, and we know we can reverse.
