Global warming has an interesting history:
- Denial - until more data pretty well converted even the few remaining, Christy.
- Not man made - usually by citing volcanos, unsubstantiated orbital patterns or unsubstantiated solar activity
- Too expensive - there is not enough money to pay for what it takes
But over time, better data, most recently ice cores, tends to mute these objections except for "too expensive." But that one presumes the consequences of global warming are 'free.'
One consequence of global warming is to reduce the land mass by rising sea levels. This forces our species into more crowded conditions and like some of the earlier animal models, we're likely to see population reductions by war and starvation. But war and starvation may be cheaper than spending all the wealth of the world on dealing with global warming.
Personally, I see petroleum coming to an end soon as we're burning it up as fast as it can be pumped, peak oil. Soon enough the shortages will drive us to coal liquification and bio-fuels. But in the meanwhile, there are huge quantities of legacy CO_{2} and it isn't going away very fast.
I have no illusions about my Prius carbon footprint versus my life carbon footprint. The Prius is insignificant in the big picture but it does impact my fuel costs, something I can address. I have no problem with global warming research simply it is intellectually challenging, like the study of black holes. Global warming research may lead to ways to reduce or even reverse CO_{2} while we make our planet a great place for the return of the dinosaurs.
Bob Wilson