Mazwegian, these cyclic changes in the past took tens of thiousands of years. An full ice age/interglacial cycle takes, on average, about 100,000 years - see at Mowibble's chart above. It is happening now. We are approaching an ice age. No one denies that is happening. It is a few thousand years away, but no one denied it is happening.
Aside from these natural cycles, there is extremely compelling evidence humans are rapidly changing the climate. The merchants of doubt - those who have a lot to lose - are selling doubt and sponsoring the dissemination of conflicting theories and so called 'evidence'. Have you stopped to wonder why you yourself doubt the scienfic evidence but the experts don't?
I really think you have hit the nail on the head when you say:
"if the world really is warming at such an alarming rate, then surely the scientific community would welcome findings that indicate that it mightn't be so bad after all, or that other factors are the underlying cause. The pain that many people will have to go through as energy prices rise, and as food poduction is replaced with tree planting or clean energy fuels is possible immense. Why inflict that on the world if it is not necessary?"
People do not want to hear bad news, particularly if it threatens their ideology or their world view or their religion or their way of life.
Yes the scientfic community would welcome some good news on this front. Why wouldn't they? You seem to be assuming there is good news but they are suppressing it. Sigh... back to the old 'global conspiracy theory'...
If you reject the clear and overwhelming scientfic evidence (for example, hotter atmospheric and oceanic temperatures, much higher levels of CO2 and other GHG's, climate modelling, melting ice caps, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, extreme weather events) and the physical reality (more coal and oil being burnt than ever before, more deforestation than ever before) then you have to ask yourself...
What is more likely? An enormous group of scientists and government and non-government organisations around the world conspiring to fabricate evidence on a massive scale with vested interests spreading scientific doubt using methods that have been successfully employed in the past, such as disputing the link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer?
