I wouldn't think of it in terms of is climate change right or wrong. There is an opportunity here for someone to make a game changing difference in energy supply. Oil is just dead animals, squashed up and left for a million years. If someone can teach bacteria to do that, or someone can create better solar, wind , wave power, with decent storage abilities, then the power that oil producing nations have over the rest of the world will disappear eventually. Not talking today or tomorrow, but I'd guess there's a lot of smart researchers thinking about how much money they could make if they could create something for homeowners to supply all their power needs, or refuel their cars. Digging messy dirt out of the ground may seem like the stone age in a few decades.
I agree! CO2 may not be a cause for climate change, and whether climate has been changing or not may not be critical. However, All things should be carried out for the sustainability of climate and environment. Side products could be a lot of inventions and innovations (just like space race and arms race). At least we would have a CO2 futures market for trading! Haha
How can you say that CO2 may not be the cause of climate change ? Very Odd. http://joecrubaugh.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/Co2ClimateChangeAndFossilFuel.jpg
OK, I have to say I am only a newbie in understanding this Big issue! Just 1 day ago in Xinjiang, China (Glacier/Ice River/Ice Stream moved 20 KM, probably due to climate change!): However, after so many years, are there any scientific experiments with certain set-up in a lab to physically simulate any slight change of temperature, either increase or decrease! That would be also match to the computation result from a mathematical simulation model! So far I can see graphs showing correlations, but correlation is not a proof of cause-and-effect result at all. My point is I really don't want that after many years of remedial actions for climate change, we then find out CO2 is the wrong direction/target for improvement! I am not saying actions on CO2 are not required. (During the last few days here,) I am actually saying perhaps the world needs to spend further more resources in investigating the Real causes of climate change for sustainability sake!
One of my college courses was Environmental Economics. One of the issues discussed was how to value certain things so as to derive some practical way of dealing with it in economic terms. How does one put a price on the old growth forests? They are going to die off as the climate changes too fast for them to adapt to. How does one value the 1/6 of all species that may go extinct due to global warming? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...arming-animals-species-conservation-wildlife/ What is the value of salt marshes that will be flooded by rising sea levels or beaches or coral reefs ? Some things just cannot be judged purely in economic terms.
That's exactly why the world cannot go to a wrong direction, after many years planned actions, people then will find out zero result. But it will be already too late, due to irreversible stage would have been reached in the future!
There is no question that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It is a physical property of it that has been proven. It's level is largely responsible for the temperature of the planet. We have raised it's level by 40%. And aside from the greenhouse effect of CO2 there is also the acidification of the oceans from it which may end up being as important as it's thermal properties.
George Carlin was a great comedian. He was not a climate scientist. I find it interesting that righties use a comedy routine to counter the opinion of virtually the entire world's science community. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/