During the Cold War, some of the most polluted countries were the industrialized client-states of the old Soviet Union, especially Romania and Poland. Even as late as late 1992/early 1993, most buildings in my adopted hometown of Szczecin, in northwestern Poland, were heated by coal. I remember seeing huge piles of coal on the sidewalks as I’d walk the back streets on the way to the train station.

I can only imagine how bad it must have been (and still is?) in the highly industrialized region of Upper Silesia. A friend of mine who emigrated to the states in the ’70’s likened this region to northern New Jersey: town after town, pollution upon pollution.

Again population growth is the #1 problem as far as pollution goes along with war disease starvation and a host of other problems.

I can’t remember exactly where I was now, but at some historical Civil War area in VA., I remember the guide telling us that several wagons running non stop in a loop over a hundred miles long was needed to keep enough wood coming for the needs of the estate. When I was there there was forest all around. They said in those days there was almost no trees at all.

I essentially agree. The case I have against environmentalists like Al Gore et al. is their cock-suredness (is that a word?) that 1) all these terrible things will surely happen unless we sign and comply with the Kyoto treaty; 2) all this is exclusively (or almost exclusively) due to human activity; and 3) if you so much as question 1) and 2), you must be for pollution.

I also have a case against the hypocrisy of Hollywood-types who are so self-righteous about driving hybirds but think nothing of jetting all over the world in their private aircraft.

As far as the effect of population growth, the problem is actually affluence growth. Despite their burgeoning populations, countries like China and India weren’t a problem until increasing numbers of their citizens could afford to pollute. Ironically, the Kyoto treaty would do little or nothing to affect this.

I’m not saying that pollution does not matter, or even that it is not causing global warming. But over the millions of years of Earth’s existence there has been, with out doubt, cycles of extreme cooling and warming. Just as now we witness short terms of less extreme climatic temperature cycles.

The jury is still out on long term climatic changes, and will be for many thousands of years. And even if ultimately it is the fault of man there is only one real cause, that is rarely talked about, and that is that there is to many people in the world.

No matter how efficient cars or power generating stations become as long as the population continues to grow so will the threat to our planet. But population control will never be tackled by the left. They will just, as with most things, continue to insist that it is possible to herd cats, grasp smoke, or legislate anything into, or out, of existence..