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Heh, never seen it rain so much in CA in the last few months in a very long long long time - 5 straight days of rain scared me.
FWIW given that the Earth cycles take a long time, we have little way of knowing the long term effects given our impact has only been felt in the last few decades, which is but a flash in the scope of the Earth.
The idea of global warming is somewhat wrong - it warms up to a point, then can have the reverse effects, where it cools the earth. The bigger question, imo isn't whether its effects are what are stated - that the earth gets unbearably warm. The bigger problem, imo, is whether human effects are accelerating or altering Earth cycles.
For instance, a theory is that warming will melt the ice at the poles. This has been observed in the Arctic and Antarctic ice where land previously covered in snow has snowly melted - snow and ice previously permanently frozen.
The theory is that if so much water is melted into the ocean, cooling the currents, many places currently kept warm by those currents, will slowly freeze. Take Europe for example. They're at much more northern latitudes than most of the United States, yet they often have warmer weather than we do. That is because of the warm ocean currents - should they cool down, suddenly, temperatures drop, and bad stuff happens, perhaps accelerating an Ice Age there.
Asking for warmer weather in New England is fine - but hey, if its 15-30 degrees warmer there, imagine what it would be like for other parts in the country, when 100 degree weather in the summer is unbearable 115-130 degree weather. I dont like the idea of bringing Death Valley to L.A.
As for finding alternate energy sources - sure, but I dont see why that has to exclude caring about the environment. They're not mutually exclusive. The path lies in fusion power IMO - the current problem is of course making them self-sufficient. We know how to contain it, and in Europe, one of their fusion plants is running at 0.7 sufficiency (as in it can power 70% of itself, it needs to be above 1.0 to be self sufficient in power). A middle-sized lake has enough hydrogen/deuterium to power a small country for 1000+ years. Also, given that hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe, its not a bad prospect.
But IMO doing what we can do now to slow the use of energy until we get there is important - keep in mind that it takes fuel and power to build those fusion plants. Lots of it. If we one day do run out, we'd be in a shitty situation when we need to build those plants, and can't. And anyways, while I think the big thign is humans will need to move off this planet to other planets/space, I say, why not take care of what you have now? Its that simple to me.
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