Firstly, there are anti-industry primitivists (read: live in mud huts) within the Green movement which, like the NGO charities, is saturated with libertarians. However, these form a thankfully small minority and most Greenies and anarchists are pro-technology.

Anyway, I hope you all realise that's it's far FAR too late for any form of debate like this to occur. We're already beginning to see negative feedback loops in the environment and peak oil has finally begun to hit, which will plunge everyone into economic ruin at the worst possible time. Start preparing for alternatives. Real alternatives. The time to act was twenty years ago. Even if we agressively transform our energy policies tomorrow, there won't be a significant outcome until twenty years from now. Coupled with representative democracy's "slow-and-steady" built-in conservatism and the inherent selfishness fostered and nurtured by nationalism and capitalism, there is no out. We need to come to terms with this. Start planning now.

It's like with our health. We have so-called "doctors" talking about "diseases" like cancer - all this is just theory, and many specialists in the field dismiss cancer as a fiction made up by greedy researchers trying to drag in bucks from socialist sympathizers distributing government grants. We all now know that this whole cancer idea was drummed up by one-world watermelon communists, green on the outside, red on the inside, as a way to erode traditional American values. Let the truth be told!

Anything that is based as heavily on the Christian religion as the current neocon movement is going to have big problems with reality. Because their belief's are not based on reality they are based on relgion. It has become one of the basic tenets of their movement. Every neocon worth his salt is also a bible thumper. The Christian religion in turn is based on myth from the bible. Something that was written several thousand years ago and was meant more as a history of the Jewish people and their belief's than it was anything. But, some ingenious soul turned it into a religion. Most of them do not see the need to do anything about the climate change. After all the world is going to be coming to an end very soon. That is what all of the 'end of timers' say. So why waste the money and time on future generation's who are not going to be here? They are going to make sure it does by setting the middle east ablaze with endless wars. If they are wrong, and most of us already know they are. The world is in a mess from all of their excesses.

I agree with the basic premis of your argument; that we must stop ant-science conservatives from informing policy, but should we not also stop anti-science liberals from doing the same thing?

Really...for one thing we'd stop hearing the koan of "the debate is over" which is definitely NOT science. We'd see research targetted towards trying to falsify theories, which the IPCC has all but specifically eliminated from its charter, which doesn't seem very scientific to me. Oh, and we'd stop hearing the reasoning that says "well we need to do what the IPCC says because if we're wrong it would destroy the planet" which sounds like the religious reasoning that says things like "surely Islam must be right because so many people believe in it and besides if you're wrong you'll go to hell>' See, that's more like religion than science.

And there are lots of other aspects of the alarm being risen' over the process of global climate change which we've lately become so obsessed over that could use a healthy injection of objective reality. Our climate, like all aspects of our human impacted environment certainly calls for a lot more research and certainly we should reign-in the truely damaging pollution we create (and I wouldn't include CO2 in that class) and let's face it, even if we could controll our climate by controlling CO2, we'd still face genuinely serious threats from mega-catastrophes all of which are exacerbated by our poorly designed human infrastructure and the continued degradation of our natural environment.

So, yeah...lets get that old time religion out of our scientific processes and lets remember that stupid thinking is not a domain only inhabited by conservatives and the best way to identify and reject bad decisions is to look at your fellows and neighbors and take an honest look at yourself while you're at it.

I guess the 31,000 scientists (including 9,000 PhDs) who signed a petition rejecting the notion of man-made global warming must be "anti-science" scientists. Check it out:

Okay, I read that. They name two scientists, one is a physicist and one is a doctor of medicine. While I will not dare question their expertise in physics and medicine, I will say that they may not be qualified to speak out on climate change and other environmental issues.

That petition is a flawed appeal-to-authority argument that is designed to fool people with that gaudy PhD number. A PhD isn't an expert in everything.

See the sig link for comments.

Here it comes, "the war on Global Warming" and your just as full of scare tactics as the people responsible for "the war on terror" or "the war on drugs". The next big con, precious little alternative energy startups, the Democratic party's Haliburtons, spending 20$ to make 10$ worth of energy, but why not? Sell it to the g For 30$. AND YOUR ALL A BUNCH OF FUCKING SUCKERS!

... I enjoy watching the Conservatives squirm over global climate change. The argument by Romm is essentially right. You want to 'save' capitalism, you better allow the 'capitalist' market and some government intervention. He is one capitalist talking to other, more retrograde capitalists.

I personally don't believe it is possible - new technology is essential, but the market alone cannot guide the society. As long as the capitalists and imperialists sit on their hands - as they are generally doing right now - they will have no credibility in the future. They are just pushing the world towards barbarism.

Socialists consider capitalism to be at an end-game here. Not from the threat of the proletariat - yet... but from the threat of capital's own desire to exploit everything it touchs.

A more collective approach to these problems is needed, and in essence, capital does not like a social approach. That is it's bind. Survival demands united action. Capital demands profits by any means necessary.