I will not wait until 2009, nor use a lack of leadership as an excuse.  Nor do I blame journalists, scientists, obstructionists, corporate structure, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, hubris, lust, gluttony.

I blame avoidance on a failure of American ethics.  Other indicators of immorality -- preemptive war, torture, plans to vitrify Iran, lost civil rights, injustice, corruption,...

We can not solve global warming issues in the vacuum of morality.

A classic day for assassinating tyrants ...

I do not understand the premiss of the argument that "our descendants will be much richer than we are," so therefore let us do nothing and leave the problem to them.  How in the world can we make that prediction about our descendants?  (Well, yours, not mine, since I do not have any.)

And even if they are wealthier, is it not assumed that there will persist an unjust distribution of wealth, with a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor, such as exists today?  In that case, how will the motivations of the wealthy be any more enlightened then, than those of their ancestors are today?

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

... that the "wealth of future generations" argument has some practical and moral issues.  To begin with, it assumes some reasonable rate of economic growth.  However, economic growth relies on the stability of the climate, so can you have it with climate change?  Also there's the obvious moral issue of passing problems on to future generations.  Overall, I am not in favor of that argument.

Regards

IMO climate change is a big international con, perpertrated namely by the scientists who formulated the idea, and the IPCC.
to look at it plainly and in simple terms, the world climate is a constantly fluctuating entity, like a lifeform. The climate can differ widely over thousand of years, even hundreds. The IPCC is covering itself by shouting wildly at anyone who disagrees, labelling them heretics as if this Global Warming/Climate Change fiasco were some new religion. I dont discount that the Earth is warming up, but didnt we go through this problem before? in the 1970s? were we not talking of polar ice caps melting, sea level rises, a frazzled earth?

we have nothing to worry about, the temperate will probably have gone down in 5 years!

NOTE: in medieval times the earth was 5 degrees hotter than it is now, woe betide us, remember how all those poor english serfs were killed in the great flood of 1354???? no, neither do i

chris