Ahh yes the old Global Warming debate. I've had discussions about this with coworkers and I've heard both sides of the debate. I have to warn you that I am a skeptic on global warming and I believe we are in just a warming trend rather than the Earth spinning out of control.

Scientist have said we are going through one of the hottest times in years. But can they say definitively how hot it was 500 years ago? How about 1000 years ago? No they can't. All they can do is "estimate" how hot it was through ice/soil samples. The reason they cannot tell you definitively how hot it was more than 400 hundred years ago is because no one documented temperatures till the industrial revolution about 400 years ago.

The Earth has existed for millions of years now and we have only been looking at the temperatures for the last couple hundred years. With this infintesimal amount of data, we think we can predict what will happen in the next 100 years? Hell, the weathermen can't even predict if it'll be raining next week, what makes us think we know what will be going next year or a decade. Also it is debatable if the "extreme" weather over the couple years can be contributed to Global Warming. Can we blame El Nino on Global Warming or is it just a natural occurence?

I now own a motorcycle that gets about 40+ MPG and I've been using it every chance I get. Of course I can't drive it year round since Virginia has 4 real seasons but I figure it is contributing somewhat. Also I take the HOV lane when on the bike so it is also removing at least one vehicle from traffic congestion on the regular highways.

This is always a good debate and I'd like to see some new viewpoints.