Al Gore inspires snow day

According to Al Gore, all that snow around us is the result of global warming. That's good news for all those skiers who thought they needed to focus more on golf and surfing.

But what is the real story on global warming? There is little doubt that there are climate changes underway. But why are these changes occurring and so what? Are human activities at least partly responsible for warming trends and can changes in human activities prevent or slow the process? And does this all really matter? Are we in danger of extinction if something is not done very soon?

Why don't we assume the worst? Imagine that if climate change is ignored, billions will die and global civilization as we know it will slip into a dark age. That would be pretty serious. So what solutions to this imminent disaster are being offered?

Have you heard of carbon credits? The way it would work is that an enterprise that didn't dump lots of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere would receive credits,  that is licenses, to dump the stuff that they avoided dumping. Then they could turn around and sell those credits to another enterprise that really wanted to spew bad stuff into the air.

Does this make any sense at all? Already there are planned businesses that serve no economic function and couldn't possibly cover their operating expenses let alone turn a profit. But because these future enterprises would qualify for carbon credits, their sole reason for existence would be to sell these credits at handsome profits to would-be polluters.

As a practical matter there are only two ways to reduce the carbon footprint of humanity. We can drastically reduce the level of toxic substances that we spew in the air and water of the planet. Then we can end deforestation and begin to increase the land areas covered by forest all over the Earth.

If we do these two things on a large enough scale, one of two things will result. We may end or reverse the global warming trend and we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done.

But we may find that the trend is caused by more than the activities of mere mortals and see warming continuing (at least until the beginning of the next ice age). Who would then stand up and complain that we were stuck with all this unnecessary clean air and clean water when all we wanted was cooler temperatures.

I wouldn't. Would you? So what are we arguing about?