by L. Merlino

Created on: March 06, 2009

Global warming is a misnomer. It should be called "global change," and indeed it is nothing new. Over countless millennia, our planet has naturally experienced many cycles of climate change, and will continue to do so ... it is a natural process, and increased government regulation will certainly not reverse the trend, no matter how tough the environmental legislation. The trend we should fear most at this time, is that of decreased personal liberty.

What is happening on a natural, planetary scale is far greater than we currently know or understand. It is part of a much more complex machinery than we can take credit for. At best, government intervention can only put a band-aid on it. At worst, we lose more and more of our personal freedoms when we turn to government for a fix.

It's amazing how people think that government intervention is the answer to every perceived problem when government has so often gotten us into many of the problems we currently face.

If we'd never burned fossil fuels or polluted the environment with industrial wastes, the overall environmental changes our planet is currently experiencing, would still be brought into play. Our best bet is to take care of our fiscal deficits first and stop giving government more excuses to dip into our wallets.

The American public has leaned upon legislation for far too long - as our planet is reorienting itself, going through climatic changes, so must we. We need to rethink where our quality of life is going. We need to protect our precious fiscal resources as well as environmental resources at this time.

Those who can afford to do so, should adapt a greener lifestyle - it's an additional expense to install solar heating in our homes, purchase more energy-efficient vehicles and buy organic, but we should strive to do so whenever possible. Government won't do it for us! When government "earmarks" a certain amount of funding for "green" initiatives, we can expect a lot of palms to be greased in the process at both the local and federal level. No matter what they tell us, the budgeting is not a wholly transparent or efficient process.

We need to think for ourselves and budget our own resources more wisely. In many ways, the current planetary conditions reflect humankind's overall condition - we need to adjust our ways and achieve greater equilibrium and balance in our own personal lifestyles rather than expecting an outside agent to do it for us.

The earth is a very versatile and resilient planet. We don't completely

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