That’s a good point, and one I’ve mentioned to David before. There is a cost associated with inaction.

David, regarding the link between global warming and hurricanes, my understanding is that while scientists aren’t sure if it will result in more frequent storms, they are pretty sure that it will result in a greater percentage of longer, more intense storms.

Here’s a Wikipedia recap on global cooling. Important point:

At the same time that these discussions were ongoing in scientific circles, a more dramatic account appeared in the popular media, notably an April 28, 1975 article in Newsweek magazine. Titled “The Cooling World,” it pointed to “ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change” and pointed to “a drop of half a degree [Fahrenheit] in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968.”

There is no question that the science now is better than it was then. However, there’s also no question that we’ll know more in 2036 than we do now.

BB, it’s not clear yet that global warming has anything to do with hurricanes. We’ve had periods of frequent and intense storms in the past.

As for the insurance companies, they’ll raise rates if they see risks growing. If consumers see risks growing, maybe they’ll reconsider building a house on a sand bar. However, I doubt it. Even before the current hysteria, we all knew it was only a matter of time before a Cat 5 storm wiped out the Outer Banks. It has always been thus.

We are already seeing the increase of violent storms cause by global warming. What will happen to our economy that you are worried about if either or both of these catastrophes happen? And don’t say they won’t because they already have, and we have the proof in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

That only goes so far. We could be more competitive with them by doing away with child labor laws and opening sweatshops, but few people (I hope) would advocate that. If something is the right thing to do, we should do it even if it means we’ll be a little less competitve.

“Where would we be if in 1975 we had committed to spend billions to warm up the earth to stave off the coming ice age?”

This assumes that the evidence for that ice age was equivalent to the evidence for global warming and our role in increasing it. I’m unfamiliar with what was being said in 1975 - can you point to anything that shows the evidence was on the same footing?

I agree with the second half of your comment - there should definitely be a bigger push for some of those alternative energy ideas. Short term, there may be competitive disadvantages, but long term it would be likely to pay off.

1% of $11,000,000,000,000 is $110,000,000,000.

On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was to be negotiated, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed by a 95–0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res. 98), which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States”.

Part of the harm, in addition to the actual costs, is the relative harm done by making ourselves less competitive with India and China. You don’t spend $110 billion one time and that’s it.

What’s worse when arguing about Kyoto is that even if implemented and the ‘rosiest’ scenario plays out in its favor, it doesn’t do much. It’s a feel good policy built on incomplete information. Where would we be if in 1975 we had committed to spend billions to warm up the earth to stave off the coming ice age?

What we ought to be doing is moving more quickly toward flex fuel vehicles which have less harmful emissions and have the added national security benefit of getting us off oil and reducing the amount of money going to people who want us dead.

The only problems that I can see with this is that if the US moves toward alcohol, oil prices will collapse thus giving China an advantage. If we raise taxes to keep alcohol based fuels competitive, they have lower costs by remaining with oil. However, I’m willing to cross that bridge later.

The other problem is that if we move seriously to using ag products to fuel our cars, it’s going to take a bunch of farming both here and in Central and South America. I suspect extreme enviromentalists will be upset about it. But what are you going to do? It’s important for our standard of living for us to continue to grow and that takes energy.