Couldn’t agree more. The religious cult of global warming is distracting and destructive in addressing the real problem – unsustainable hydrocarbon-based energy. We just don’t know enough about Earth (and the universe) to definitively say what the man-caused CO2 increase will do. I wish the NOAA would shut-up with their nonsensical 1000 year computer models (I would like to see all their assumptions and list of unknowns that were excluded from their models – e.g. high acitivity of volcanos).

As you say, fixing the energy problem would take care of a majority of the CO2 problem. As Chu, the new DOE head has said, we don’t really know what effects there are in increasing CO2 levels, but it is probably bad. Global warming, if it even exists at all, would only be a symptom. I wish that the fear-mongering speculation of global warming would be replaced with the logic behind unsustainable hydrocarbon usage.

Be careful of the Federal Government though – my Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, wanted to use $25 billion already dedicated to the DOE for energy and auto research to be used for the short-term bail-out of the Big 3. The folks in DC only look to the next election cycle. Long-term research and plans tend to be scrapped. Funds diverted. We’ll see if any of the provisions in the “stimulus” bill will actually make it to completion of real projects. I hope so.

Chu helped California reduce their energy usage in three ways – state regulations for better insulation of refrigerators and (counter-intuitively) allow only larger size refrigerators to be sold (as they are more efficient). These were state regs – not federal and it worked out fine (screw the Big 3 – they can meet state regs if they want to.) Chu also helped put in regs for better insulation of houses. Insulation is pretty cheap – and the payoffs are great (including to the manufacturers as the price to build refrigerators actually went down due to smaller compressors needed) – and the life-style of the people involved does not have to change. A third change was to decouple profits directly from increased usage of power for the electric companies. Instead they were given incentives for helping reduce energy usage. This caused the power companies to help their customers reduce energy by providing classes and information on weather-proofing their homes, etc. Again, no major change to lifestyle required. These were low-hanging fruit, yet most other states have done nothing. Lobbies are very strong and most of our “leaders” in DC are weak and easily bought.

Hopefully Jackson, Chu, and others can do some great work in the next 4 years to create a realistic and reasonable energy plan.