When the heat index is over 100 degrees, it's kinda hard to argue against global warming. But I'm going to do it anyway.

At the risk of sounding like I'm parroting President Bush's talking points, I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't think we know enough about the idea of 'global warming' to say that we're causing it, or that we can do anything to change it. Think about it...the Earth is something like two billion years old, or so we think. Modern man has been around for what? Maybe 5,000 years? And we've been keeping weather readings for maybe 200, probably less. It's a little arrogant to believe that in 200 years we've totally figured out the cycle of a 2 billion year old planet, and even more come to the conclusion that we have that significant of an effect on it. A billion years ago, this planet was one giant, bubbling ball of molten rock. A few hundred thousand years ago, it was covered in a sheet of ice. How did it get from one to the other? If we'd been around back then, GreenPeace would've been blaming George W. Bush for global freezing, and not doing enough to stop it. When we can accurately predict the weather 2 days from now, let me know. Or when we can prove that this isn't a natural cycle of the planet and that we're causing it, I'll be the first one demanding that something be done. However, I don't think that the amount of information justifies all this wailing and gnashing of teeth from the left, or that it justifies things like the Kyoto protocol.

Interesting side note: Pretty much every country that has signed the Kyoto protocol hasn't been able to reach the goals set by it. So all those countries criticizing us for not being a member of the treaty aren't faring much better despite the fact that they've signed a little piece of paper saying they care. Shocking, isn't it? But, as per usual with the left, intentions trump results.

All of that being said, if I were going to do anything to stop global warning, my first step would be to make volcanoes illegal. See, the top polluter in Washington State isn't the coal-firing power plant that produces 27 tons of sulfur dioxide a day (sulfur dioxide causes acid rain, respitory distress and a lovely little haze in the air). No no no...it's Mount St. Helens. The volcano puts out between 50 and 250 tons of the pollutant every day...that's almost twice the amount of the state's top 'man made' polluter -- on a GOOD day. On a bad day, the volcano puts out almost twice the amount of sulfur dioxide as all man-made polluters in Washington State COMBINED (which is right around 120 tons).

If you think that's bad...try living in Italy. Mount Etna can produce 100 times the sulfur dioxide of Mount St. Helens. For those of you scoring at home, that's 200 times all of the man-made polluters in Washington State COMBINED. Better get GreenPeace on that...see if they can get volcanoes to stop erupting.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't try to do something about the environment...but it's not as drastic as some people make it out to be. In the late 1700's, Thomas Malthus got his pants all in a bunch because he thought we were gonna run out of food. And he probably would've been right if we'd stuck with the agricultural practices of the 1700's. But he forgot to factor in the whole idea of technological advancement and innovation. Today we have a few billion more people on the planet, and save for a few exceptions, we're fatter than ever.

The same is true for pollution. As we advance technologically, we'll finder better, cleaner, less polluting sources of energy. In the 1970's, cars got about 7 or 8 miles per gallon...today with a hybrid car, they can get like 50. And it's only a matter of time before we develop a vehicle that doesn't run on fossil fuel at all. And I'm sure we'll think of something to clean the pollution that already exists. We just need to calm down and let captalism do its thing.