i've never posted anything that might get me the HC equivalent of a black eye, but here goes:
i don't blame former generations for burning coal/oil to release the energy, the only reason we have the internet to chat about this is because of their discoveries and our embracing all that the high-energy lifestyle brings. but put it into a little geographic and recent historical perspective- our grandparents used horse and cart, the majority of the third world are still doing that. since the 60's hippies then the 80's greenies then ones wearing suits like garnaut and gore and stern, and the many wearing white coats in between (PhD types, not pharmacy assistants), we've been getting told this- humans actually affect the planet. one can say "its a big planet, it can cope" as i have heard old farmers say, but anyone who have taken a flight in the last 10-20 years will see, yes, particularly in australia there are huge expanses devoid of a human touch, but huge expanses that have (and that is australia, not the lands with many people in them)
i love the term 'greenhouse gases', they imply that gases in the air can turn earth into a greenhouse, and greenhouse conjures visions of verdant vegetation (lot of v's in that passage). but then a greenhouse is a small ecosystem, i believe the term is microcosm. it is shut off, has water and nutrients come in and lovely vegetables go out. unfortunately the earth (and any- and here i will accentuate- any part of earth cannot be sealed off from the atmosphere of the rest of the planet) has wet/warm/productive areas and cold/dry/unproductive areas. and plenty of crossover- wet/cold/productive (think the great plains of USA or pretty much all of europe), hot/warm/unproductive (think the sahara or central australian deserts).
governments in australia don't want to try to take control of you (the civil service does, definitely, that is their job- including the ABC). political parties are in a marketplace as vicious as the stock market, they try to sell you what you want to hear and you either buy it or you go to someone else. hence the two party system in most mature democracies, hence the fracturing to parties like the greens, democrats, family first in australia, hence the demise of the australian democrats- they could not sell anything the greens weren't selling, and the greens had more conviction.
and, since i work in market research, a quasi-scientific notion like psychology, i won't discount the idea that validating a theory brings immense joy.
but for mine, there are too many ways the human impact can affect our planet to discount the idea that carbon dioxide/methane/whathaveyou that we produce can muck things about. i am not a chemist, i cannot be sure in myself that these carbon compounds in the atmosphere do cause warming. i understand a really high concentration of these gases cause our nearest neighbour planet venus to be a bucketload degrees warmer than it should be considering how close to the sun they are (i remember that from many years before global warming was frontpage).
there's no two ways about it, the lovely cheap-energy ride we've enjoyed for the last 100 years care of oil, or 300 years care of broader carbons (coal) is coming to any end. the oil is running out, not before time it would seem. life will get tougher whether we cut our carbon output or not, the hope from all the boffins is that the hurt can be frontloaded so that it is we can cut the damage that will be visited on us in 15/50/100 years. if the worst of the "predictions" (i made that a quote to put a bit of my skepticism on display- i don't buy global warming 100% but like a civil trial v criminal trial, while i aint beyond reasonable doubt i do see it as the likeliest on balance) comes true, only about 5-10% of the current crop of folks in the world will be around in a century (famine and war). if you got kids, think of them. if you don't, worry about muggers getting you in your old age.
