I have heard in response the rather sane assessment that it does seem rather likely that we are going to need it in seven to ten years, as well, and as such that accessing our own energy sources remains a good bet. 

And there's the rub. The typically implicit and often express rationale underlying the “it’s not immediate” rationalization is that we should instead invest in alternatives of the future. First, taxpayers have been investing in alternatives to hydrocarbons to the tune of about $40 billion since the 1970s — and what have we gotten for all that appropriated money?

Editor's Note: John Coleman's (pictured) Comments Before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas.  It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline.  All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth.  What an amazing fraud; what a scam.

The future of our civilization lies in the balance.

How can the world achieve economic growth while at the same time decarbonizing the global economy?

This question is important because there is apt to be little public or political support for mitigation policies that increase the costs of energy in ways that are felt in reduced growth. Consider this description of reactions around the world to the recent increasing costs of fuel:

Concerns were growing last night over a summer of coordinated European fuel protests after tens of thousands of Spanish truckers blocked roads and the French border, sparking similar action in Portugal and France, while unions across Europe prepared fresh action over the rising price of petrol and diesel. . .

Protests at rising fuel prices are not confined to Europe. A succession of developing countries have provoked public outcry by ordering fuel price increases. Yesterday Indian police forcibly dispersed hundreds of protesters in Kashmir who were angry at a 10% rise introduced last week. Protests appeared likely to spread to neighbouring Nepal after its government yesterday announced a 25% rise in fuel prices. Truckers in South Korea have vowed strike action over the high cost of diesel. Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia have all raised pump prices. Malaysia's decision last week to increase prices generated such public fury that the government moved yesterday to trim ministers' allowances to appease the public.

The Illinois Democrat made those remarks when asked by CNBC's Erin Burnett what the Democratic energy agenda would be. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but it just happens to be the truth — something 57% of the American people agree with, according to a new Gallup poll.

While attacking GOP presidential nominee John McCain for "trying to drill our way out of the situation," Emanuel told CNBC: "I think you have to have both — obviously more production — but also to start to invest, which has not happened, in (energy) alternatives as well."

So do we. This is pretty much what congressional Republicans and President Bush have been saying all along.

We need to develop all of our domestic energy resources, none to the exclusion of any other source — nuclear, clean coal, oil, natural gas, wind, solar, heck, maybe even switch grass.

WHAT IS a "reasonable" corporate profiit? Is it 8 percent, 16 percent, 25 percent? What profit is unreasonable? Don't know? The Democratic majority in Congress thinks it does. And that should scare everyone.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a windfall profits tax proposal that would tax any "unreasonable" profit made by big oil companies. Yes, that word is actually in the bill. How is Congress to determine what level of profit is unreasonable? Well, that's the scary part. Would you let Congress determine what level of profit your business should make, and then confiscate the rest?

Of course you wouldn't. But "Big Oil" is the bogeyman of the day, blamed by Democrats for high gas prices (when they aren't blaming Republicans in general and President Bush in particular). So the Democrats consider it fair game for unfair and unreasonable punishment by the government.

"Cynical politics” may be a redundancy, but it is hard to imagine a more cynical political issue than global warming (GW). In his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, Al Gore called for a “wrenching transformation of society.” Leftists, with their elitist penchant for social engineering, didn’t need any convincing. The challenge for Gore was the inconvenient truth that, in a democracy, a would-be central planner needs to get the masses on his side, too. To do that, he borrowed a strategy encapsulated in H.L. Mencken’s statement, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Apocalyptic GW became Al Gore’s hobgoblin of choice.

Gore needed the scientific community to back up his assertions and the media to spread the word. Enlisting the help of the media was easy (apocalyptic fantasies are sure ratings winners), but getting enough scientists on board was trickier. When Gore started his GW campaign in the early 1990s, a contemporary Gallup poll of scientists showed that only 18 percent thought there was any evidence to support Gore’s theory. Even a survey conducted by Greenpeace found only 13 percent of climatologists willing to declare GW “probable.”

Written by Walter Sullivan, "Study of Greenland Ice Finds Rapid Change in Past Climate" addressed findings that suggest "the period of stable climate in which human civilization has flourished might be unusual, and that the current climate may get either warmer or colder much more quickly than had been believed -- in spans of decades or even less."

Republicans finally have a winning argument on a big issue, and they'd better make the most of it. It starts with high gasoline prices--the single most infuriating issue to voters these days--but doesn't end there.

Democrats are not being blamed for causing the price of gasoline to reach $4 a gallon, at least by the public and at least for now. Where Democrats have stumbled embarrassingly is in their campaign to persuade the public that the American oil industry is the chief culprit. A Gallup national poll in May found only 20 percent blame the oil companies for gouging, down from 34 percent a year ago.

Where Republicans have succeeded is in selling their solution to soaring gas prices: drilling for oil offshore and on federal lands, areas now off limits. In the Gallup survey, support for drilling in precisely these areas jumped from 41 percent in 2007 to 57 percent in May.

During last week’s debate over the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid hyperventilated that global warming is “the most important issue facing the world today.” So how does Reid get to work every day? In a huge, armor-plated, 13 mpg Chevrolet Suburban SUV provided by Capitol security police.

Obviously, climate change is not as important an issue as the security of our leaders – otherwise the good senator from Nevada (where yet another Suburban is waiting for him when he flies back home) would be driving (or biking) himself in a smaller vehicle.

As a Detroit News colleague of mine likes to say: “I’ll believe climate change is a crisis when the people who say it’s a crisis start acting like it’s a crisis.”  Source