THE ENVIRONMENT, GLOBAL WARMING
AND CONSIDERING IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE
YES, THERE'S A REAL PROBLEM
Yes, we are taking from the earth, doing some damage, and not planning out our resources over the long term. And we will likely continue to do poor planning until we are faced with more severe realities.
And, yes, mankind is affecting global warming.
NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES?
Right now we have no alternative energy sources that are economically viable except for nuclear energy. However, I would speculate that solar energy will be a major alternative provider, once the battery storage problem is solved - which it will be.
The problem is that most people are relatively ignorant of what is really going on and there is quite a bit of emotionalism that is clouding the issue.
The bad news is that there is a good argument to say that it is probable that we cannot stop global warming and that we are stuck, instead, with increasing our ability to adapt. And that means that the key will be to increase economic prosperity of all the people in the world sufficiently that they will have the resources to be able to accommodate for the increase (e.g. with air conditioning, higher sea walls).
That bad news projection is fairly reasonable, though I believe, from what I can see about technological progression, that we can solve the problem through such ideas as were presented in the movie "Cool It!", which shows a type of thinking that is of a higher level - especially when compared to the alarmist approaches that are so bent on ringing the alarm to get people to see the problem that they often forget to offer any really innovative solutions.
AND HUMANS DO ACTUALLY SOLVE PROBLEMS, AMAZINGLY
And we are also proceeding at the pace of Moore's Law to invent incredible advances in what we humans can do. (Moore's Law, which has proved to be true, says that we are and will be accelerating our rate of acceleration in technology such that, now, astounding new creations come quickly and oftem. See Moore's Law Wikipedia.)
RATIONAL THINKING ABOUT WORLD PRIORITIES
People who are passionate about global warming will ordinarily not react very well to the super-rational approaches, even of experts who have done the thinking and agreed upon the conclusions. Watch, for sure, the Ted.com video: Global Priorities Bigger Than Climate Change (about 20 minutes). See also: Bjorn Lomborg - Tackling Global Warming And Doing Good (video, 42:56) - One comment: This guy took made me realize that I, and probably most people, have no understanding of global warming, its real implications, and how we should be solving problems.
