But, if an opportunity to make money presents itself to a farmer, who has lost his ass on potatoes for several years, can you blame him? People have to survive in the here and now, and the fine points of ethanol from corn are not germane to his making a living. The beef and milk cattle around here (and there are lots of them) live on hay, so any price rise from a shortage of corn to feed the cattle further east, will again be of local benefit. That is whole point of global warming, there will be winners and losers. Idaho has one of the lowest average incomes in the nation so anything that increases that is good, even if it means a reduction somewhere else. Some of the models for global warming (and they are mostly bullshit) show Idaho getting warmer and wetter. So if you live where the hurricanes and rising seas will cause a bit of a problem, my heart goes out to you, but I still might like it.

Good luck.

Retired, but my training as a scientist was MIT, so my science credentials are as good as any. Friends of what Earth? The Earth is a very varied place and climate change will affect some parts differently from other parts. It's tough if you live where it won't be so nice in the future, but other people will see an improvement. BTW, corn is a rotten animal feed. It has no omega-3 fatty acids, so beef and milk from corn-fed animals is nutritionally deficient. Since omega-3 fatty acids make up one third of the brain, and beef 100 years ago had lots of omega-3 from grass, that might explain the present small size of our brains and general stupidity of the population. The best uses for corn and soybeans are to make biofuel, and get them out of the food chain.

Almost all the species that have inhabited Earth are extinct. There is nothing unique about the present assemblage of critters and bushes that must be preserved for all time, even if we could. The world changes and things evolve. A long time ago blue-green algae oxygenated the planet and forced all those sulfide-loving bacteria to hide where the O2 would not kill them.

It appears that most Salon readers live on the coast, which might be a very bad place to be if global warming melts enough ice. Their selfishness would deny those who benefit from global warming from enjoying its benefits. As Dyson correctly points out the fossil fuel era will effectively end in 50 years. All the Earth lovers who think nothing of burning vast amounts of fossil fuel on plane trips to cultural places will have to give up their jaunting about the planet. Anyone writing to this list bemoaning global warming who has flown anywhere in the last year is a hypocrite.

We cannot sustain our present profligate ways with energy based on what the sun puts on each square meter of surface. Fossil fuel is collection of molecules that took many millenia of solar energy to produce, besides the geologic time to convert them into their present form.

However, liquid hydrogen is a nifty fuel for jet aircraft, and we can produce lots of it with nuclear power, for which there is plenty of uranium and thorium in the planet to keep us going for longer than we have been around to date. So, world travelers, if you jaunt about on a nuclear-hydrogen jet it will be OK.

Our church was asked by the credit union next door if their employees could our parking area on weekdays. It freed up a number of spaces for their customers and presented no problems for us. I think they pay for plowing in the winter.

There appears to be an inordinate number of vehicles with disabled placards these days. Are these people really disabled and if they are is it by choice? I mean fat asses, knee problems, and diabetes, where they have selected medical control of the symptoms instead of non-medical cure of the underlying problems.

The market will respond to the increasing cost of fuel with smaller high mileage cars, and they will be bought and used, albeit grudgingly. Computers and sensors that will allow completely automatic control of cars will negate the need for public transportation. Automatically controlled cars can drive at 75 MPH with their bumpers two feet apart. The increased capacity of the roads will allow far more cars to use the them. We will need far more parking, albeit for much smaller cars.

The major problem for most of the country is summer and and winter. Bicycling in 100 degree heat or zero degree cold is not possible for most of us. Waiting for public transportation is also not very easy in those condition. The interface problem with public transportation will never be solved except in very high density urban areas. I worked in NY and used the subway every day 50 years ago. I walked over a mile at each end, and it worked when I was 17, but maybe not now that I'm in my 70's. I also ran up the 21 flights to the office where I worked to stay in shape.

If every man who made off-color remarks to women was in prison, there would be no men (except possibly homosexuals) free. Although Thomas is not distinguishing himself as a justice, the liberals dredging up Anita Hill was pretty pathetic. Anita had her 15 minutes of fame during the Thomas hearings. She appears to have used that to exceed her level of competence, as perhaps has Thomas.