From my stand point the CO2 emission debate has been tainted by opportunists in government and industry. Government would impose a direct tax on all companies that produce CO2, who's costs would then be placed on the general public. They would also use cap and trade to off set CO2 emissions, but that just places the production of CO2 in another part of the world. The production of power using windmills and solar power, while a step in the right direction, costs about ten times to produce energy then traditional methods. Some industries have taken advantage of subsidies (taxpayers money) to build and install these technologies.

Windmills and solar panels are interesting and can produce power but it is expensive power and will not be of any consequence in reducing CO2 if necessary. More powerful forms of energy will be required if industry is to remain in North America. Their desire to relocate to other countries such as China and India is not solely based on the cost of human resources, but more importantly on the cost of energy. We cannot compete on the world stage with windmills, while China continues to use cheap fossil fuels.

There are many great technologies now proven effective to not only produce cheap job sustaining power but to provide clean energy. Some examples are Thorium nuclear reactors, hydrogen fuel cells and supercritical CO2 technologies. Developing these technologies and implementing them into the North American market would provide millions of jobs and once in place, industry would reestablish themselves here as cheap power becomes available and the people to design and implement that power are developed.

Leading American Climate Scientist James Hansen said he was pleased the Copenhagen Summit failed. I was pleasantly surprised he was a believer in global warming not global climate change and at the same time didn't support Cap and Trade. He was the first climatologist to Identify global warming and has stuck by his guns without making the situation an opportunity for tax grabs from various levels of government including World Governments. I still remain a skeptic but at least James Hansen seems to be a straight shooter.

James Hansen wants North America to move to renewable energy and more powerful clean energy, which is fine with me because they will reduce costs for energy, provide employment to establish those energy sources, give international business reason to reestablish here and keep the air clean not just from CO2 but more environmentally damaging substances.

James Hansen's ideas on taxing oil at source and redistributing that money to all individuals to use in such a way that they could actually make money from it, seems burdensome. considering governments record with managing money. Economics is not his forte, but his ideas at least suggest he has not been bought off by anyone, yet.