headlines today squawking about all the democratic presidential hopefuls solution to high gas prices are 1)investigate the oil companies for price gouging 2) make more and mandate more ethanol 3) legislate higher fuel efficiency...i guess none of these nincompoops heard about nuclear energy and america's vast coal resources... viable, safe, environmentally friendly and currently available solutions to: cheaper energy, cheaper food costs, the reliance upon authoritian governments in the middle east and south america for fuel...the list could go on...wake up america...all our energy needs and the answer to your budget problems is in our own backyard...dont listen to the doomsday pontificators...its not true...global temperature variance is a natural thing even though they will try to convince you otherwise based on voodoo science...

"Gasoline powered vehicles were the lowest scoring."

Typical liberal nonsense to ignore the fact that there are billions of gasoline powered cars, millions of gasoline stations, and trillions of dollars invested in petroleum refineries and distribution networks.

Those little details aren't important after all, compared to buzzwords like "alternative."

What we need to snap out of it are a few weeks of Jimmy Carter style oil shortages and three hour lines at the gas station - just to remind us just how terribly important oil is to our lifestyle and survival.

There are so many ridiculous people riding around on their AGW high horses right now. They need to get knocked off and get their feet back on the ground.

Patrick henry.

You would be better off remembering that creationists still believe that dinosaurs walked the earth with people6000 years ago and that some people still believe that war is the best way to peace. These examples show there are some ideas that will not change unless a better understanding of the world around us occurs, and that these ideas must be uniformly adopted before even the most isolated communities are educated.

Before scientists knew the effects of atmospheric nuclear testing, they led us to believe the world was heading for another Ice Age. Once it became clear that the explosions caused dust to enter the atmosphere we learned more about global dimming which explained the cooling experienced in the 1970�s. However the vast majority of people still have no knowledge of these events which caused temperatures to fall and so it is presumed that the scientist were at fault. Scientists also measured a cooling effect caused by contrails left by airlines but only after the flights were stopped over America for just one week post 911.
This all goes to show that global climate change has occurred before and was caused by human activity. In the nuclear example it took only Russia Britain an America to cause global cooling; and with the aircraft the example proves that just one activity will affect temperatures over an entire continent.
What is not shown by the supporters of AGW is how humans can alter consumerism so that controlling global dimming (caused by industrial particulate pollution) does not neutralise any positive steps taken to reduce co2 emissions.
Alternative energy actually increases the total volume of available energy in the world which will create a surplus. As developed nations adopt alternatives any surplus fossil fuels will be used by developing nations to accelerate there own industrial revolution, and will duplicating current western co2 emissions.
The task of saving the world is very real and we should be prepared to fail, but at least we should recognise the dangers now.

"Before scientists knew the effects of atmospheric nuclear testing, they led us to believe the world was heading for another Ice Age. Once it became clear that the explosions caused dust to enter the atmosphere we learned more about global dimming which explained the cooling experienced in the 1970's"

Interesting theory Simon - doesn't work though because the Atmospheric Test Ban treaty went into force in 1963.

But supposing that you are right - then the solution to global warming is to let Iran develop and use nuclear weapons. Carl Sagan's nuclear winter will kick in and lots of government funded AGW scientists will be out of work. People will be trying to figure out ways to induce AGW to keep from freezing to death.

Actually the test ban treaty only confirms the interesting fact, Patrick.
Atmospheric detonation occurred from 1942 until 1962, dynamically increasing high levels of unnatural particulate pollution which stayed in the air for two decades while the earth cooled. Establishing a cooling trend that by 1970 was mistaken for an emerging ice age.
Nuclear explosions along with additional industrial sources of particulate pollutions during the early age of cold war consumerism were enough to shield the earth from solar energy, having a measurable cooling effect. Global dimming has been accepted and is now proven, therefore is an example of how humans have affected global climates. So why do you still dispute AGW?
The problem with letting Iran solve AGW is that like Iraq these so called threats do not have the WMD and will not have a delivery system ready for years besides which any plans involving a Nuclear Winter to solve AGW must have bilateral global support to be successful.
This is a more interesting proposal and a far more likely scenario.

China, Russia, America, France and Britain represent far greater present day nuclear risk than India, Pakistan or Korea so the world could manage to start a nuclear winter without waiting on Iran.
America, out of the nuke ready league, has already taken a step closer to ensure that a nuclear war will occur. By launching a first strike policy Washington makes it clearly a question of when rather than if, and the introduction of defence systems in Europe and Oceania makes it imminent. America has big plans to make unconventional war its goal in the future.
Imagine the cost cutting benefits possible by push button remote controlled nuclear war! Missiles with nuclear payloads instead of financing aircraft, ships, tanks, humvies and paying for three defence forces just to take oil away from little nations, all while making war seem like the only choice.
With Nuclear war America can knock out all the other customers who will pay more for fossil fuels. This will secure future supplies and keep the costs down. Nuclear war is the way of the future! The savings are enormous and co2 emissions from future wars will be reduced.
I think nuclear war should even be encouraged by Kyoto as part of an overall offset plan designed toward mitigating emissions from all future resource wars.
You know, all the wars that we will have to have just to keep consumerism going now that communist govennments have become the worlds most polluting aggresive capatalists.

The US nuclear defence projects already seeks to ensure that any future pre-emptive strikes can limit the effects of retaliatory strikes thereby avoiding the cold war �MAD� pit fall of conventional tit for tat nuclear war.
The American plan will station defence systems close to other nuclear nations and is designed so that America and its allies can knock out threats before the targets leave airspace.

This means that the act of defence will cause enemy war heads to detonate in enemy airspace as well as the nukes sent in pre-emptive strikes. A double whammy where destruction, collateral damage and fall out is limited to targeted nations and a senerio where the cooling effects will spread globally without fatal radioactive sideeffects.

Once Carl Sagan's nuclear winter kicks in, all of us will be out of work. People will indeed be trying to figure out ways to keep alive without freezing to death, civilization will crumble and history may well become anecdotal as survivors of Armageddon invent some kind of new age gospel to explain events.

The event will stop consumerism in its tracks and silence global industry allowing centuries for co2 to drop out of the atmosphere while particulate in the atmosphere keeps AGW from cooking the planet.

Of course billions will still die due to this type of human activity but the time it will take for the climate to stabilize after a nuclear winter will be shorter than if we allow AGW to stall the Gulf Stream. Warming rising acid seas are already disabiling global carbon sinks so obviously that tipping pints have been reached.

Unfortunatly I cannot see how the leasons from our age can be learnt by surviving generations.
A nuclear winter will ruin any chance to pass the message on in any indisputable way. This is what bothers me. How can we stop future generations from making the same mistakes?

So Patrick how can you maintain that human activity can not cause climate change? We know it already has, so how can we prevent it from happening?