Do the causes of global warming matter?

Let's try a little hypothetical situation:

You're standing on a riverbank and you see more and more people who appear to be trying to get out of the river, but they're tired and can't swim to shore so they're being swept on out to sea. Do you

1. go upstream and figure out why they're all in the river, or
   
2. blame the policies of the Bush Administration, or
   
3. ignore the cause and hope sound-bites on the 6:00 news will make it clear that you're not pointing fingers but definitely in favor of keeping people from drowning?

If you picked "3" you were likely impressed by Governor Sarah Palin's amazing winking soundbite show in what was supposed to be a debate Thursday night. I suggest you move to Alaska where you can rest assured you'll be hearing a lot more from her in the coming months and years.

If you picked "2" I sympathize, but you'd better be out working to get Obama elected, and working to add forward-thinking progressives who think about energy and the environment in terms of the future to both the U.S. House and Senate or you'll be whining on November 5th.

If you picked "1" feel free to add me to your friends list, we just might have something in common.

We urgently need a comprehensive energy policy for the United State that will, at a minimum:
• Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
  
• Help create new jobs by strategically investing to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
  
• Provide incentives to save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
  
• Put hundreds of thousands of Plug-In Hybrid cars on the road sooner rather than later. Our government must work to encourage those vehicles are being built here in America.
  
• Ensure 10 percent or more of our electricity comes from renewable sources within 5 years, and aim for 25% within 15 years.
  
• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to substantively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The causes of global warming do matter. And while there is more than one reason people may fall in the river, making sure other people aren't pushing them in and figuring out what the main causes are -- and preventing those -- will save us a lot of time and risk we'll otherwise invest in hauling drowning people to shore.

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