"Carbon dioxide -- they call it pollution, we call it life."

Venus has 90 atmospheres of "life."  Balmy temperatures too -- 900 degrees Fahrenheit, day and night.  They'd love it there.

http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/

Dear God, what's next? Fresh air: scourge of humanity?

   Dear David,

      Who will believe such silly ads?  Many many people who don't have other sources of information.

      A lie repeated over and over again can easily overwhelm a truth infrequently heard.

      And I suspect these folks will get the money they need.

      It will be a long summer....

patrick

The contact guy for the ads is Richard Morrison. ((JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_Q6f9l5Le9g').innerHTML = output; //]]> ) I just emailed this:

I just saw your ads with the tag line "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life." It sounds like a parody of an some 50's "better living through chemistry" style ad campaign.

When I heard about this web site I thought it just had to be a joke. But wow, you're actually serious. Your ad campaign is sure to become a classic like those "better living through chemistry" or "reefer madness" ads. Thanks for your addition to American pop culture.

How about you make a campaign called "Uric Acid. They call it urine. We call it lemonade". You can talk all about how natural and yellow uric acid is. How animals pee it out. How its yellow like lemonade, and refreshing when chilled.

-Rafael Baptista

You can't live without water, but you can drown in it, too.  Nobody's saying that CO2 is "evil"-it's simply that we can have too much to be healthy.

Interestingly they have set bounces on their (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_zDSNgsXbkE').innerHTML = output; //]]> and (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) //= 0; i=i-1){ if (l[i].substring(0, 1) == ' ') output += "&#"+unescape(l[i].substring(1))+";"; else output += unescape(l[i]); } document.getElementById('eeEncEmail_TUNEaSKi0h').innerHTML = output; //]]> addresses where something mentions the ads - they don't like the reaction, do they?

Or they could be worried that their server can't handle a targeted e-mail campaign from mocking websites.  I used to work for a small free-market think tank, and when a flood of traffic hit in response to some public controversy, it wreaked havoc on our systems.  Incidentally I don't know anyone at CEI.  You might try asking them why they're bouncing messages to the pr and info addresses before jumping to conclusions.

(I had to give my name, e-mail, zip code and country to Grist to comment here - does that make them malevolent?  E-mail is open, for better or worse, unless you use AOL.)

That said, I think the point of the ads, hyperbolic as they are, is that your preferred policies would have severe effects on the Western economy - something Al Gore surely knows.  And the science behind predictions of global catastrophe a hundred years away is murky at best.  This is what too many environmentalists don't realize - policy changes have real effects now, and uncertain (if any) benefits later.  Have a little compassion for today's inhabitants of Earth.

First of all, what's "free market" got to do with anything? We don't have one of those. Particularly when it comes to energy, land use, and agriculture.

your preferred policies would have severe effects on the Western economy

That is repeated frequently by conservatives, but frequent repetition doesn't make it so. Every new regulatory initiative has been met by cries of doom from conservatives, and those grim predictions never pan out. Among other things, it strikes me as a truly unflattering assessment of America's strength and ingenuity.

www.grist.org

Viable carbon-neutral energy will always be less expensive than the consumer cost of fossil fuels, otherwise fossil fuels will be used.  

Fossil fuels will continually cost more with time while new technology energy will continually cost less with time.  

Always challenge the message that solving global warming is expensive and will make people poor.  The opposite is true.

Always challenge the message that solving global warming is expensive and will make people poor.  The opposite is true. Capitalism is expensive, and makes people poor.  The message that "solving global warming is expensive" is a reflection of the individual costs of individuals "solving global warming" separately.  

http://ecosocialism.blogspot.com/