Hmm, how to proceed?
1. Global warming is a misnomer. Global climate destabilisation is a more apt term.
2. Not all information sources are equally credible. Look for long-standing peer-reviewed articles and papers that contradict their author's usual bias or vested interests.
3. This guy is gold, and the whole series (about 4 hours worth) is well worth watching:
4. Even if you doubt the science that the climate is changing and that increased CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels emitted by human activities are causing this, there are equally compelling reasons to transition ASAP to a renewables-based society:
Peak oil and peak coal.
Peak oil has had plenty of publicity. Peak coal less so. How these will interact with climate destabilisation is just plain scary. Your lifestyle will change in the next 20 years whether you like it or not and whether the government imposes carbon trading or other schemes or not. The only question is how we engage with planetary limits.
Here's why:
1. Fossil fuel resources are finite.
2. As oil extraction peaks, we (especially China, the USA and India, all the biggies) are turning increasingly to coal.
3. Not all of what's there (resources) is economically viable to extract (reserves). Every ton of coal takes more energy to mine than the previous one (cos we mined the most accessible stuff first), yields less energy (cos we also mined the best stuff first) and is also more polluting (again, we mined the best stuff first). A point is reached when it ain't worth digging the stuff up (like walking ten miles to get a snack with only enough energy for five miles of walking).
4. A peak output in terms of quantity is reached a long time before the reserves (let alone the resources) are used up (research Hubbert linearization for more info), and for coal, it looks like somewhere in the next thirty years (for some countries, especially China, much sooner).
5. A peak output in terms of net energy is reached before the peak quantity output (we mine the best stuff first) And this (as a global net energy output) could happen within twenty years. (For more see "Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis" by Richard Heinberg.)
6. Non-linear feedback mechanisms mean that if you haven't got alternatives already in place as an energy peak approaches, then all your energy output is needed just to subsist and there's none left to re-tool to new energy systems, transport systems etc. Mass starvation, war over dwindling resources and the loss of a great deal of cultural and biological diversity ensue.
7. To avoid this, we have to accept that the cheap energy party will soon be over and that as much as possible of remaining fossil fuel should be used to power a transition to sustainables (there is not the resource and skill base to replace fossil with nuclear before the peak even if we wanted to).
8. Material standards of living will drop either way. The earlier we act, the less severe that drop, and the more we accept it because we know we've chosen it in the service of an ethical agenda.
Disclaimer: I am not a sponsored kiter. I have an academic and professional background in the philosophy of science and in community development and organisational change. I currently work with groups and individuals to facilitate change processes that are ethical, sustainable, sustaining, and satisfying. I take the train or the tram to the beach.