The Working Group III, which deals with mitigating the effects of global warming, has released a summary for policymakers on their contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report by the IPCC. It is among many insightful resources that review possible developments that Minnesota, other states, and other nations could adopt for creating a better place for our children.

Of course that would require open-minded debate and assessment of all of the available information — not just those that support a single viewpoint. And if a Republican Senator from Northfield can’t do that (as we can see in these posts), how indeed can we expect environmentalists to do so?

Of course, I am one of those crazy pragmatists that hears the vast majority of climate experts saying there is an overwhelming likely hood (I think the current number is 90%) that we are causing a change that will have dramatic ecological, social, and economic impacts on the entire world and thinks, boy, we might want to see what we can do about that. At the same time, I think about a whole country/world getting behind a common vision that requires major technological advances and recall that, in the past, these periods have been accompanied by tremendous economic growth. Essentially, I see a big reason to do something and little financial reason not to.