What if you're wrong? 

With the Climate Conference happening in Copenhagen now, I have been thinking about the debate in this country over climate change. Hearing both sides of this debate, I come back to one basic question: What if you’re wrong?

On one side of the debate: Changing to adjust for climate change requires huge investments at a time our economy is in trouble, searching for new sciences that are not there yet, and a big waste of time since it is all made up.

On the other side: Getting rid of non-renewable energy comes at a huge cost, with increased energy bills to pay for the changes, and pushing green energy happens even though it isn’t ready to take over for coal and oil.

What if each side is wrong? The worst outcome for each: If we go the “green” way, we suffer for several years while our job base shifts and we develop alternatives while reducing coal and gas, at the end of which we leave a cleaner future to our children and have a planet that can recover from its ills. If we ignore climate change, and it is real, we devastate the planet, ocean levels rise (Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, New Orleans, to name a few, go under water), and we place a huge burden on our children to clean up our mess.

Ask yourself, “What if I’m wrong?”