Man made Global Warming skeptic

As a newliberal Democrat, I am open to all the facts concerning climate change. Yet, I remain unconvinced. I am very skeptical that common sense observations are being ignored in favor of science that can't be easily understood. This offers a great opportunity for people with a political agenda to manipulate otherwise sound science for their own purposes.

For every statistic or negative effect of global warming that has been mentioned such as ice caps melting or the frequency of violent weather, there are equally compelling facts that point to cooling or nothing special happening.

In the eastern part of the U.S. this has been an unusually cool-cold spring.

Not only that, but let's assume warming is happening, there must be some positives that people are conventiently ignoring?

What about less energy needs in the winter? What about the aid to people who don't do well in the cold?

My approach to this topic is to be optimistic about our future. It's our best course.

We need to create a new economy that works well for humans.

A green economy can do just that. But instead of forcing people to change their behavior through regulations and high taxes, we should invest in new technologies that produce better products and services that are good for the environment.

Produce an electric car that works better than the gasoline engines. Find a way to build a solar home that looks better than, keeps people warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and is cheaper than regular homes.

Instead we are getting mandates and rules from a top-down government.

I support some of them such as a gas tax or other measures that will decrease our dependence on foreign oil. But that is more of a political move than environmental. It is not good for us to keep importing such an important commodity from our adversaries.

We should be very careful when developing policy that will determine how people live their lives. We have to be sensitive not only to various individuals but to society as a whole.

On cap and trade legislation and other global warming issues, we should put the economy first, our political/military stability second, and then our environmental preferences third. Ideally we will work hard to find approaches that address all three at the same time.