Maybe it all really boils down to "Anti-Americanism" after all. I don't wanna think that. I really wanna believe that educated people are better than that.
I've never been a GW "Denier". I totally believed in man-made Global Warming until recent years, and I believe in it now to an extent; any kind of pollution will damage the environment if it gets out of hand; we need to find ways to pollute less, it's a no-brainer.
But how bad is it really? I suspect the severity of the problem and mankind's contribution to it have been massively exaggerated by extremist zealots. WHY would I start to suspect something like this? Who are some of these extremist "straw-men"? We need look no further than this thread to find some; look at the level of hostility and ignorance it sank to INSTANTLY (Not you- I think you know the ones I mean) It really does seem like I've blasphemed someone's "Religion" just by doubting or questioning...
I can't cite verse and chapter, I can't quote the exact issues and pages of every magazine where I've read about impending ecological Doom; I can't tell you the names of every author of every news report I've ever heard or read on the subject, or who wrote which PBS specials that I tuned into the middle of; and I shouldn't be expected to either. I don't have an extra lifetime to devote to the subject on a daily basis.
And to me it's not the most important problem in the world, anyway. I've seen enough to convince me that it's largely hysteria, a modern-day environmental McCarthyism and not a true threat to "Mother Gaia".
What concerns me is how some people devoted to rationality, skepticism, science, and critical thinking are falling into the same old dogmatic ways that I'm struggling to come out of. I've just begun my journey into rationality but I find people who should be way ahead of me on the path behaving just like religious fanatics.