Bad ideas need to be discouraged. While everyone is entitled to voice their opinion, that does not mean that efforts shouldn't be taken to silence a great many of these opinions, though that is up again to the people and not the government, unless these opinions fly in the face of established fact, then the government can work to crush myth (like "there is no anthropogenic global warming," or "hydraulic fracturing has no negative impact on drinking water.")

People who oppose these standards are helping to endanger others, and dangerous ideas must have their influence minimized

i agree that this happens to be a real issue...?  the problem is that real environmental efforts are shoved aside in the way of more convenient ones that either have little impact or none at all for political reasons. 

FUCKING THI S!

Mankind has nothing to do with global warming, it has happened before and will happen again.

And we aren't headed towards a warm period... this is the period before a new ice age.

To the above poster:

So you believe that the thousands on thousands of tons of waste (CO2, household, commercial etc) that are produced each and every year are having absolutely no detrimental impact on the planet and the environment?

That's an unconvincing arguement by itself, when you consider the fact that nature creates more then thousands and thousands of tons of waste.

Even a global warming scientist would find your arguement lacking... since according to the IPCC estimates, human causes of C02 are only 3% of all CO2 released into the air... and even most people who believe in global warming tend to agree that the IPCC estimates are generally exagerated for political reasons.

The actual arguement such scientists make is that while natural sources FAR dwarf man made CO2 and other sources of pollution, it's like pouring a couple drops of water in a cup filled to the top naturally.

Although, not even that really, since a natural increase in global tempeture is actually normal.

It's just that they feel it's faster then it should be.

Which again kinda shows an issue with the IPC numbers, since according to them, 40% of the 3% of the polution that people cause is absorbed.  When generally there is supposed to be an inefficency in the system that causes the tempetures to rise, meaning they've probably underestimated natural CO2.

Though it's worth noting that to stop global warming we'd have to cut CO2 admissions by over half, in a world that's growing, and not shrinking, in a world where population expects higher living standards and not lower ones.  Even if man made, it's extremely unlikely there would be anyway to stop it... short of world wide dictatorship that forces people to live in poverty.

It should FURTHER be noted that the Carbon Sink system has a growing inefficeny.  As when the temepture is hotter, the earth gives off more CO2 naturally and doesn't absorb as much, meaning that once the tempeture gets hot enough (for any reason) eventually it just naturally "burns itself out" into extreme global warming type disaster scenarios until there is too much CO2 and it "burns itself out" and cools off again.

Man-made or not, really, there is a very good chance it's not about stopping global warming, but coping with it.  In general vanity in thinking we control that much however, chances are we are missing natural causes, and focusing on stopping man-made emissions may be meaningless.  Or hell, it may be meaningless even if it was man-made.

All the effort on emission's cutting technology and activism should probably be put forth towards Geo-engineering technology instead.

@Kasz216 (not quoting you as I to conserve space)

Fair point that my argument was lacking depth. The mountains of waste that I was referring to that are produced every year are harmful as they contain a high level of substances that do not occur naturally in the planet's eco-system. Waste products that occur in nature (e.g. C02 and excrement) are re-used in other parts of the ecosystem.

However, waste materials produced by humans contain harmful toxins and pollutant that the ecosystem is able to cope with. CFCs that used to be released by fridges (I don't know if they still are or not) have damaged the ozone layer, and due to the way they react with ozone, still exist after the reaction and are able to continue degrading the layer continually.

Plastics, which do not biodegradable and make up a large portion of all waste that is discarded, simply break down into smaller and smaller pieces. There is actually a beach in the pacific that has had so much plastic refuse washed up on it the rock sand has been covered in a layer of plastic sand, to create a plastic beach. Plastic litter can be blow into the environment very easily and animals can easily mistake it for food. Theres a reason you don't eat crisp packets and sweet wrappers, and its the same for any other animal.

I agree that it may not be about stopping global warming, but in order to be able to cope with its effects will require time to change and do things. And allowing the process to speed up is only going to make things worse.

A lot of economists would actually disagree. 

Most green iniatives cost jobs, hence stuff like why obama is scraping the smog rules.

Economists would argue that by maximizing economic activity and growth now, we will be able to better afford the changes needed... and geoengineering technology would likely advance faster.

VS slower economics making changes harder... and the technologies meant to increase... actually end up worse off.

The most effective way of stopping global warming doesn't really have anything to do with this, however... it's the least likely thing to happen.

Convince most of the world to become vegetatrians.

The biggest part of most peoples poluting isn't the gas in their car, or their heat,  or whatever... it's how much meat they eat.

It's just easier to convince people to drive a different kind of car because the car drives the same way and there are other political benefits to alternate fuels.

Hard as hell to convince most people to give up meat.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1839995,00.html

I would just like to point out the auto industry and oil companies.  When you have two industries that work hand in hand together then technological advancements in areas such as gas mileage become very slow.  There were cars back in the 40s/50s that weigh almost as much as the Hummer that could go 100+ miles per gallon (with technologies such as water vapor injection carburetor and during the 70s the fuel-vapor engine).  The technology has been there but has been suppressed by mainly the oil companies.  The oil companies have clearly stated that they are working with auto industry to develop new engines.  I wonder why these engines can't even compare to technology that has been suppressed for 50+ years.  Sometimes industries don't care to improve efficiency especially when they are in control of finite resources.

Obama AKA Bush the third term

Thats is one point of view. Others would argue that in order to comply with the new rules, companies must invest in new technology and R&D, thereby creating new jobs/companies/industries. Yes, people will wonder where this money is going to come from, but the deciding factor is the mindset of the business managers. Are they going to re-invest profits or make cut-backs to fund this change?

Then how about this theory. The cost of conforming to the new rules so X amount of $. Part of that is spent hiring new employess to mointor company activities to make sure they arent breaking the rules. Would you look at that, you've just created some new jobs! Its quite possibly this scenario wouldn't happen, but again its a management decision.