So how will trying, while increasing costs in doing so, while the future industrial centers don't care, help us? I would really like an honest answer to that without your usual name calling.

1) The US is by far the world's largest greenhouse gas producer. Obviously, what we do has an effect, now and in the future.

2) Only by setting an example and joining global frameworks of agreement such as Kyoto can we hope to influence India, China, etc. You are suggesting we not even try.

3) The increased costs you refer to are better understood as investments in the future. To the extent we can reduce the use of fossil fuels, we are actually reducing costs. There was a lot of complaining about efficiency standards imposed in earlier decades (just as there was with pollution standards), but industry adjusted just fine and we're all better off because of it.

In short, the "do nothing" approach is forfeiting opporunities to get a head start on future technologies and to save resources with conservation techniques that we already know about, while kicking away any chance we might have to slow up GW.

Duke, climatologists are not "confused" concerning the Little Ice Age. I'm not going to go to all the effort Sonart did to refute your charge; you'd just forget again. But you might want to check out the chart in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age . The recent runup in temperatures is above even the highest in the Medieval Warm Period (an anomalously warm time, which coincides with Greenland's settlement). It is not just high compared to the Little Ice Age. Nothing in science is completely beyond dispute, but the odds that the recent warming of the Earth is unrelated to the emission of greenhouse gases are extremely low. This explains the scientific consensus, not some phantom liberal conspiracy.