At least the "Corporatists" believe in science

Chief executives from such major corporations as General Electric and DuPont teamed up with environmental organizations Monday, urging U.S. lawmakers Monday to pass sweeping legislation that would ultimately cut greenhouse gas emissions.

"The time has come for constructive action that draws strength equally from business, government, and non-governmental stakeholders," said Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric, who participated in the program.

The United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), which includes 10 various corporations including diversified conglomerate GE (down $0.15 to $36.80, Charts), aluminum producer Alcoa (down $0.18 to $31.22, Charts), oil giant BP (down $0.56 to $63.96, Charts) and investment bank Lehman Brothers (down $0.55 to $82.60, Charts), said it ultimately hopes to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent from its current levels by 2050.


http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/22/news/companies/climate_emissions/?postversion=2007012215

Even megacorporations want Kyoto-style emission controls, but the far right ideologues in the White House and their FOX News lapdog pundits still claim the jury is out on the matter. Sheesh.

Once they've worked out the business case for cashing-in on being eco-friendly, we can expect them to embrace "the environment" with their usual fervor. Once that happens, they'll let their flunkies in public office know that it's ok to treat global warming as fact. For now, though, they're hedging their bets.

But not everyone agrees on its causes, and even fewer agree on its cure.

The prudent course is to roll back CO2 emissions, while allowing the scientific process to continue working out the answers. The ultimate causes that are identified may surprise some, but we can't afford not to take our best shot right now.

We must also work to ensure that the emissions rules apply to all nations. We are all breathing the same air.

Meanwhile, I hope that more and more people begin to understand that climate (like traffic, human emotions, and stock prices) are examples of nonlinear, or "chaotic" systems, and that common-sense rules of cause and effect do not apply. The end state of such systems cannot be predicted from their initial conditions (in pop science, this is called the "butterfly effect").

The following book is as good as any I know of for an introduction to such systems, which abound in Nature. It's also beautifully written. Read it, and you will not see the world the same way again. You can buy it used for 75 cents. A small price for fundamental understanding.

Chaos: Making a New Science, by James Gleick

http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0140092501/sr=8-1/qid=1169534052/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-2720660-8775239?ie=UTF8&s=books

Peace.

It looks to me like they have decided that most likely we will have a Democratic president and congress in 2008. They want to make sure that their weak, corporation-friendly proposal gets firmly imprinted into the minds of the Democrats. This will help a DLC-type Democrat get elected, and hopefully (in their minds) stave off a more serious proposal in the future.

None of them care a shit about the planet, they just want to turn more bucks into their market share. Corporations have no conscience, only a bottom line.

I heard GE actually believes that sound environmental policy is a good edge in the free market today. I think they also might understand what non-renewable resources mean. I will admit that my Dad worked for GE for 30 years but they seem to be okay for a corporate giant. I will take them over Exxon-Mobil anyday...:-)
Also- they sponser a lot of environmental education programs on tv and elsewhere too so they should get some credit for that..and they sponsored my education too!!:-) :-)

I'm not sure how 5 oil companies is much worse than 5 corn/bio fuel/whatever companies. When they own those resources(and they'll find a way to do it, that's what corporations do), even fewer people will give a damn about corporate person hood.

If all those resources can replace the stuff the world runs on now. If they can, I'll guarantee there will eventually be a monopoly, and we'll all start protesting Big Renewables. Poetic.