Douger,
You have opened a can of worms here, and I can't refrain from posting.
First, energy conservation is not a decision that should be made strictly on global warming.
Sending our gold over to the arabs for oil seems kinda like a bad idea, especially considering how so many of the like to, you know, blow us up.
Anything we can do to keep from sending dollars to them seems like a good idea to me... especially if it cuts down on the urban heat island effect, reduces AC bills and makes shingles last longer.
Global warming is not a theory. While it is true temperature has not increased dramatically during the last eight years it has not decreased either. Also, the receding ice caps, melting glaciers, and
rising sea levels are very clear. Global warming is no longer contested by any reputable scientist.
It is true that there are hundreds (not thousands) of scientists that say that while the globe is clearly warming, it is not clear that we are the cause of that warming. Exxonn has funded much of their work.
There are always fringe dissenters that can be used for proaganda. Remember all of the science that said cigarettes were not addictive, and did not cause cancer?
Let's get something clear here about the "scientific debate" on global warming: SINCE 2007 THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC BODY OF NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL STANDING WHICH CONTESTS ANTHROPOMORPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE. (That people are causing this)
When the American Society of PETROLEUM Geologists stopped denying that we are causing climate change any shadow of scientific debate was effectively over. There are still people using this as a political issue, but the science is in, and in my opinion, the politics is bad. I don't like big government, but I have a hard time maintaining support for a party that sometimes seems so divorced from reality on issues that are a matter of FACT, not belief.
I choose to believe in God. That's a belief that can be debated, since the proof is not concrete to many people. If I choose to believe the world is flat, that just ignorance.