Here's the issue, as I see it:
People are using the environmentalist movement as a polarizing issue.
That's it. The ONLY reason people are going on and on and on about going green is BECAUSE it gets people involved and committed to whatever each side is saying.
Acid rain was going to kill the planet by the year 2000. Then the ozone depletion was going to kill the planet within a few decades. Now it's carbon dioxide? We made some _small_ improvements in acid rain (EPA emissions reduction of sulfer, etc), and some _small_ improvements in ozone depletion (CFC reduction). Has the acidity in rain dropped? A tiny amount. Not significant. Have the ozone 'holes' gotten smaller? A tiny bit, but it turns out a lot of what we saw was the result of natural cycles and the fact that we started measuring it.
Global warming was going to kill us, but try as they might scientists couldn't find a reason that linked human activity to increasing temperatures. It took awhile, but eventually they _decided_ that carbon dioxide must be the reason, and so they started pushing on high CO2 levels, and dropped global warming like a hot potato, because, as it turns out, we can't conclusively prove that global warming will kill us outright (you know, like acid rain, overpopulation, and ozone depletion was going to kill us outright). But CO2! That can kill us outright!
What's even more interesting is that many people in that group are now moving away from CO2 specifically, because evidence is coming forth that even if we reduced our CO2 output to 0, we wouldn't make a significant impact due to natural CO2 emissions. Now they're searching for another "problem" that they can "solve" while they are still pushing on CO2.
It's a racket.
Yes, we can and should do more, and people are doing more.
But the effects of our changes to "fix" the sulfer and CFC "problems" have resulted in very small, but measurable improvments. But we certainly weren't in any danger of destroying the earth or ourselves, and a lot of what we were seeing turned out to be natural and/or acceptable (ie, due to solar cycles, and natural pollutants in the atmosphere, such as volcanic activity, forest fires, etc).
We spent billions to 'fix' these problems.
The 'fixes' continue to cost our economy billions EACH YEAR.
So you'll have to excuse us backwards thinking neanderthals if we don't drink the kool aid this time.
No one has concrete proof that the earth shattering claims are true. At best people can offer is, "CO2 captures light from the sun more efficiently, which raises temperatures globally, and humans generate CO2, THEREFORE THE WORLD IS ENDING."
Yes, we need to make some improvements. But the violent furor that both sides are generating is at best unhelpful, and at worst going to put us in a worse position than we started with.
Idiots, the lot of them. And those that buy into this and insist that we are only opposing these things for the money are shortsighted and have a poor memory of the recent past, which is just sad. Notice that the environmental groups are largely funded by and consist of people under 30?
It's easy to sell snake oil to someone that's never seen it before.
